Describing Levi Leipheimer and Andreas Klöden as ‘outsiders with a chance,’ Team RadioShack general manager Johan Bruyneel has conceded that the squad will head to next year’s Tour de France without a clear GC contender.
“We will go to the Tour without a Tour favourite. We will take all opportunities we can get,” he said in a release on the team website.
With Lance Armstrong not riding the race and Leipheimer and Klöden now 36 and 35 years old respectively, Bruyneel is looking towards the Criterium du Dauphiné victor as one he hopes to guide towards a high finish in the race.
“I look forward to seeing how our young guys will perform. Jani Brajkovic will start for the first time in the Tour as an objective to perform well,” he said, speaking of the Slovenian who rode this year in support of Armstrong and Leipheimer. “He will have an experienced team around him without having the pressure to be the leader of the team or a Tour favorite. But I will be expecting something from him.”
Brajkovic is a former world under 23 time trial champion and winner of the 2007 Tour of Georgia. He stepped up a level this year in the team’s pre-Tour event in France, and was a late call-up to the Tour team. Bruyneel sees no reason why he can’t keep improving.
“Jani has always been a guy with expectations. His victory in the Dauphiné has been the confirmation of his talent,” he said. “He won that hard race against Contador and he can make a step forward now. Top five must be his ambition but we won't put too much pressure on him.
“For our team it is a good Tour. There will be a lot of occasions for breakaways and stage wins, just as Paulinho did in 2010.”
Details of next year’s race were officially released by organisers ASO on Monday, with a total distance of 3461 kilometres awaiting the riders between July 2nd and 24th. There will be 21 stages in all, and five will be mountain-top finishes.
Bruyneel appears a little undecided about how things will work out. “I think it’s a special Tour with ten flat days. It takes a long time before we arrive at the mountains, which is another approach,” he said. “Normally we arrive in the mountains after seven or eight days, but this time it’s pushed back.
“There is no prologue and a short team time trial on day two. I would have preferred a longer one but, ok, better a short one than no TTT for us.”
Chris Horner was the team’s highest-placed rider in this year’s Tour. He rode well on the final climb of the Col du Tourmalet, and ended up tenth overall in Paris. He was nine minutes two seconds behind Alberto Contador (Astana). Armstrong crashed on stage 8 and finished up 23rd in his final outing in the race.