Giro d'Italia winner, Ivan Basso will postpone his flight to Argentina for the birth of his third child. He leaves on January 13 to start his season at the Tour de San Luis stage race.
"That's where the season starts, but I am not expecting to go there and win," he told La Gazzetta dello Sport. "It's worthless to go there and kill yourself."
The Italian's last race was the GP Québec in Canada on September 10. Last month, he started his training in earnest at team Liquigas-Cannondale's training camp. He continued training at home, though was forced to train indoors due to bad weather.
"One of the gifts I received for Christmas was a half-day of sun. I had been training on the home trainer for three days, a total of 11 hours," he continued. "The bad weather slowed down my preparations, but I know that I will re-establish myself quickly."
In Argentina, Basso will join team-mates Eros Capecchi, Jacopo Guarnieri, Alessandro Vanotti, Cristiano Salerno and Dominik Nerz. The five leave a couple of days earlier, while Basso joins his expecting wife at the hospital. For now, they are keeping the sex and name of their new child a secret.
Basso is motivated to begin his season. He is 71 kilograms, only a little bit heavier than what he needs to be for the Tour de France in July.
"Not worried about it, it's normal for this time of the year. The feeling I have in training – the grit in which I am doing my repeats on the hills in training – is the same feeling that I have on some of my best days."
After he returns from San Luis, January 17 to 23, he will race the Trofeo Laigueglia in Italy on February 19. He continues with the GP Insubria and GP Lugano weekend, Tirreno-Adriatico and Volta a Catalunya in March, and País Vasco, Flèche Wallonne and Liège-Bastogne-Liege in April.
Basso will likely skip the Giro d'Italia, leaving Vincenzo Nibali the responsibility to defend his title. This year, Basso will peak for the April races and then back off and return to try to win the Tour de France.
In 2005, he finished second behind Lance Armstrong. He subsequently served a two-year doping suspension, but has returned and proved he can win a Grand Tour. Last year's Giro d'Italia was one of the hardest editions in recent years. Basso won the race by 1'51" over Spain's David Arroyo and 2'37" on his team-mate Nibali.