Chris Anker Sørensen more irritated by Matti Breschel and Fabian Cancellara’s comments
Team Saxo Bank owner Bjarne Riis has come under fire in recent days from Matti Breschel and Fabian Cancellara, who are both leaving his team this year for Rabobank and the Luxembourg Cycling Project respectively. Both riders have spent many years at Saxo Bank (and its former incarnation CSC) but both have joined the exodus of riders from the Danish team.
Yesterday Breschel told DIF Sporting Life magazine that the reason for so many departures from the team was that there was a bad atmosphere; he also accused Riis of being behind others in terms of planning and communicaton. This morning Cancellara, probably the biggest name besides the Schleck brothers to be quitting the Danish outfit, claimed to the Berner Zeitung that Riis was inflexable and authoritarian.
“I am sorry to hear that you’ve read that,” said Riis of the criticism to Sporten.dk. “I am well aware that not everything ran like clockwork last year, but it has to be said that everyone has a responsibilty to help make the best of things.
“I have tried as best I can, to create this team the way I thought best,” he added. “If people are dissatisfied with what is it like, I can not do much about it.”
“Absolutely, we can all speak together; I look at and listen to it,” he said, “I can easily handle it.
“I also hope the folks who have been here, have learned something,” he added, explaining that he is now concentrating on his 2011 team.
“We are well underway,” he said, “and the mood is really good.”
Chris Anker Sørensen is less calm than his team manager; the 26-year-old Dane joined Riis’ team in August 2005 and insists that he is very happy there. He also spoke to Sporten.dk, expressing his irritation with the comments, and regretted that the issues had not been dealt with internally, but were instead aired in the media.
“But instead, I understand, it comes out,” he said. “They are constantly asked why they have left the team, and they are required to give some answers; and they will be asked again, and again, and again, so they say something at the end.
“It’s easier to criticise than to say, ‘we switched teams for the sake of money’”
He did concede however that while he would have preferred that his former teammates had not spoken out in the way that they did, there must have been something to make so many riders quit the team this year.
“I don’t recognise what they’ve said, but I have not even been at all the races, and there is a reason why they have chosen to leave,” he conceded.
However, for Sørensen 2011 looks like it’s going to be another enjoyable one under the guidance of Riis; as one of just over half the 2010 roster who is staying on, the Dane concurs with his boss in declaring that spirits at Saxo Bank-SunGard are high.
“I am super happy to be here,” he declared, “and although I have not been on any other teams, we hear a part about how it is done on other teams. Therefore I dare say that we are doing well on this team.”
Both Riis and Sørensen were speaking from the team’s first get-together of the year on the island of Fuerteventura, in which the usual survival camp was dispensed with in favour of fun and games.