Thomas Löfkvist (Team Sky) has confirmed to Eurosport Sweden that he is to ride next year’s Giro d’Italia as team captain. The former Swedish champion had reportedly told the TV channel in October that he wanted to target the Italian tour, where he wore the leader’s jersey for six days in 2009, next year and has now apparently had this agreed with the team.
While he will be leading the team though, he has not declared any specific goals for the race.
“It’s nice,” he said. “It’s difficult to set targets right now; you have to go there well prepared and then see how far it goes.”
Löfkvist is currently on the Mediterranean island of Mallorca at the first Team Sky camp, and is apparently enjoying himself with his teammates.
“We have been lucky with the weather,” he said, “today is a bit grey but otherwise it’s been nice to be here. There’s a positive atmosphere in the squad.”
Sky has apparently, according to Eurosport, agreed that Löfkvist will lead the team to the Giro while Bradley Wiggins leads the team to the Tour de France once more. While Wiggins was the team leader in this year’s Tour, following his incredible fourth place in 2009, he was not able to live up to expectations; Löfkvist ended up as the team’s best rider, finishing the race in 17th place, just 20’46” behind race winner Alberto Contador (Astana).
The Giro course looks to be the toughest Corsa Rosa for many years, and it is predicted that very few of the contenders for the Tour will race for the overall in Italy. While many riders are already performing reconnaissance on the stages they want to target, as Lampre-ISD’s Michele Scarponi is about to check out Mount Etna, the weather in the Italian mountains would make a trip for Löfkvist a waste of time.
“There is still snow on the stages of interest,” he explained.
As he went into the Tour this year as a worker for Wiggins his results were largely below the radar; having laid out his intension to target the Giro so early on, its unlikely that Thomas Löfkvist will be able go quite so unnoticed.