Spanish sprinter Oscar Freire will skip the Giro d'Italia and Tour de France next year. He explained at team Rabobank's presentation yesterday in The Netherlands that he will focus on the spring classics and the Worlds.
Freire won the World Championships in 1999, 2001 and 2004. If he wins on September 25 in Copenhagen, he will become the first rider to win the one-day race four times. He has also won four stages at the Tour de France and in 2008, the green sprinters jersey, but will skip it next year.
"I will miss it because they [team Rabobank] want to fight for the general classification with [Robert] Gesink," Freire told Spain's Marca newspaper. "If I miss it, I save myself for the second half of the season, the Vuelta a España and the World Championships. That is probably what I will do."
Dutchman Gesink finished sixth overall this year at the Tour de France. Rabobank will build its eight-man team around him next year in hopes to improve his placing.
Freire is okay with missing the Tour de France as this year his biggest results came in the spring and fall. He won the Italian Classicissima, Milano-Sanremo for a third time in March and Paris-Tours in October.
"My first big goal of the year," said Freire, "will be the Italian Classicissima."
Rabobank asked him to start his season in Australia at the Tour Down Under, but Freire prefers to stay in Europe. He will make his debut at the Mallorca Challenge.
"Going to Australia wasn't the best choice, because it totally changes how I like to start the season."
After Mallorca, he will race the Vuelta a Andalucía, Clásica de Almería or Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne, and Tirreno-Adriatico as preparation for Milano-Sanremo. Then he will race Gent-Wevelgem, País Vasco and the Ardennes Classics: Amstel Gold, Flèche Wallonne and Liège-Bastogne-Liège.
He will skip the Giro d'Italia because his allergies are the worst in the month of May.
"It's more likely that after the [Ardennes] classics in April that I will race the Tour de Romandie and the Tour of California." He added, the Giro d'Italia "this year is different and barely has opportunities for the sprinters."
Freire will be 35 on February 15 and will decide at the end of next year if he will continue towards the 2012 Olympics in London. He said he is excited to keep going after solving his sinuses problems and winning Paris-Tours at the end of a long season.