Just a couple of days after Michael Rasmussen confirmed that his sponsor Christina Hembo had purchased the Team Stenca M1 squad, with which he will race from 2011 onwards, he has said that a considerable interest has shown thus far in the project.
“I have CVs of about 50 riders who would like to race for the [Christina Racing] team,” he told Sporten.dk. “These are Spanish, Italian, German and French riders, as well as some Danish, of course.
“There are good names in some cases. They are names that have raced on the ProTour level or been on the podium in major races.”
Rasmussen had hoped to compete with the ProTeam Saxo Bank-SunGard squad in 2011, thus getting the chance to ride in some of the biggest events in cycling including, possibly, the Tour de France. However team boss Bjarne Riis ultimately decided not to sign him, much to Rasmussen’s disappointment.
He is known to have been badly affected by that, but says that he came around quickly.
“If I was going to give up, I should have done it a long time ago,” he explained. “I’m so enthusiastic about the sport in all its facets, I cannot escape it, even though I was down for about a day after Bjarne Riis had extinguished the hope of getting to race for Team Saxo Bank. It is just not in my nature to give up.”
Rasmussen, Hembo and the others are now working hard so that everything is done in time. “In terms of planning, we are not in the 12th hour, but rather the 13th hour,” he said, emphasising the lateness of trying to get the project in place. “It is therefore to get the last thing in place. The goal is to get to ride the Tour de France in 2016. By then I probably won’t be active [racing] any more, but I would love to return.”
Rasmussen has said that he hopes to ride progressively bigger races between now and his retirement, whenever that comes. During that time, he aims to work closely with the team, helping the young riders to develop.
A timeframe has been set out, with the team aiming to be one of the best Continental squads by 2012. It plans to ride as Pro Continental circuit between 2013 and 2015, and then to push for a ProTeam/ProTour licence by 2016.
That would see it riding the Tour de France, although by that point Rasmussen would presumably have retired from competition. He’s 36, and would be into his 40s by then.