Andy Schleck enjoys the current period of the season, finally having time to see friends and take a break from traveling. He used the time to talk to Luxembourg paper Le Quotidien and reflected on the highlights and low points of his 2010 season. He is also excited about the new Luxembourg team, which is being launched on January 6. The interest is huge, with possibly as many as 5,000 people in attendance.
Schleck calls the current period the best moment of the year. "You are at home, where the rest of the year you go from airport to airport, you travel, you race. I have waited for this moment for months," he says. He currently doesn't even have the desire to restart his training. The weather helps his quest. "Well, there is all this snow that prevents us from rolling around outside. And, like so many racers, I don't like the rollers all that much."
Even in his time off, he wasn't at home the whole time. Having first spent some time in Cancun, he went on to race one last time. But the Amstel Curaçao is known for vacationing as much as it is known for a shorter than usual race, which this year was won by his brother Frank. "In Curaçao, we did some wake board." A photographer took some shots. "There is a very nice photo where you can see me fly through the air."
The younger Schleck is no novice when it comes to boards. He enjoyed himself at a team meeting in Crans Montana recently. "I have been snowboarding since I was twelve years old, although I do prefer to ski."
It is this kind of diversion that makes him forget the deception of the Tour de France, although Schleck says he has put his loss to Alberto Contador behind him a while ago. "Let's just say that I am disappointed and content at the same time. I can't wait for the next Tour. I can't avoid thinking that the 2011 route is very good for us, Frank and me."
Andy still says that the memory haunts him sometimes. "I could have taken it if I wouldn't have lost time left and right. On the one hand I am content to be second, on the other hand I knew I was stronger than Contador. Those 39 seconds hurt." But he wants to put the past behind and only think about 2011. "I think I will be the logical favorite."
Brothers in arms
The two Schlecks are very close to each other and have repeatedly said that they can't imagine racing for different teams. Andy doesn't give too much though about the fact that Frank crashed out early in the 2010 Tour. "You can't rewrite history," he says. Yet he acknowledges that racing without his brother was hard and that he missed him a lot. "Especially in the tough moments. I had all the pressure on my shoulder and I think that I would have been stronger if he would have stayed by my side."
Andy, the younger of the two, stayed concentrated on the race, but in the evening he talked to Frank two or three times. "That was really important to me." The toughest day of the entire three weeks was the day his brother left with a broken collarbone. Andy hung tough in front of the team. "I was really feeling bad. I had a position as a leader. But at 25 years of age, I am still a young rider." Nicki Sorensen became Andy's roommate for the remainder of the Tour. "He is really a nice guy."
Andy was then asked if he could have beaten Contador, if Frank would have been able to stay for the entire Tour. "It is very difficult to say, but I still think that yes, I could have. You could see how well I was going. And I have never seen Frank at such a level."
The new Luxembourg team ready to hit the road
For the next season, the excitement of the new team will also add to the motivation for the tow Schlecks. Andy maintains that he knew what was going on, but always kept his distance. "Brian [Nygaard] and Kim [Andersen] were in the center. I am a rider, not an office worker. Of course Frank and I were consulted, with regards to this or that rider."
Many riders of Saxo Bank are joining the Luxembourg Team and Saxo Bank's manager Bjarne Riis had to look for a number of new riders, including a contender for the Tour de France. It was natural that he eyed Alberto Contador. "Without being pretentious, today there are only five or six riders who can win the Tour," says Andy Schleck. While it was normal that Riis looked for a substitute, Schleck didn't appreciate the timing and the fact that Riis questioned their loyalty to Saxo Bank. "Apparently during the Tour de France he already had reunions with Contador himself, my main rival."
Relations with Riis went downhill from there, culminating in Schleck and teammate Stuart O'Grady being thrown out of the Vuelta for coming home way too late after one of the stages. "I am 100 percent convinced that this could have been handled differently. I am human and that can happen to anybody." He maintains that his work ethics are intact "I don't finish on the Tour podium two years in a row by chance. I work for that."
He can't wait for the new team to kick off the season. "I think on paper we will have the strongest team in the Tour." He adds that results have to be obtained first and points out that there is always a chance that things don't work out as planned, like for Team Sky last season. "But I am not worried, quite the opposite."
Schleck knows that the team means a lot to his country. Everybody is awaiting the launch, when the final puzzle pieces will be placed in front of the public. "They will discover the real name of the team, the program, the jersey colors and the design."
One essential part of Schleck's program is of course the 2011 Tour de France. "We will multiply our reconnaissance rides, doing the key stages twice."