With details of the first three stages of the Amgen Tour of California being released today, the Team Type 1 sanofi-aventis squad has said that it is psyched about its participation in this year’s race. The US team raced there last year, with Thomas Rabou impressing in dominating the King of the Mountains title. The squad was also fifth in the team classification, finishing ahead of others such as the BMC Racing Team, Team Saxo Bank, Rabobank and Fly V Australia. It wants to return and once again land success.
“The Amgen Tour of California is a great race, with tons of fans, and we are excited to come back with our strongest team ever,” team CEO Phil Southerland said.
“We have great GC-contenders in Swiss national time-trial champion Rubens Bertogliati and Giro d’Italia contender Alexander Efimkin, and American Kiel Reijnen is an up-and-coming talent with GC wins in Thailand and China. For the stages we’re going to create action and excitement with sprinters like the Slovenian power-duo Aldo Ino Ilesic and Jure Kocjan, and darkhorse breakaway talents like Javier Megias and Daniele Callegarin.”
He said that the lineup for the race would be “extremely seasoned,” and that it would do everything it could to be in a podium position at the end of the race.
Now a UCI Pro Continental team, it has already taken a good placing this year when Aldo Ino Ilesic finished third on a stage of the Etoile de Bessèges.
One of its big hopes for the general classification is the Russian rider Efimkin (pictured). He has taken top results such as a stage win and sixth overall in the Vuelta a España, first overall in the Tour of Portugal and 11th overall in the 2008 Tour de France.
He said that he’s happy with the chance to race in the US. “It’s tough to watch American races on television and not take part, and I’ve always really wanted to be there,” he explained. “As such I don’t have much to go on other than what other riders have told me, and they all say the race is the best-organized in the world. [They also said] that the climb up Sierra Road is where the top-10 is decided.”
“Our team is going to be a combo of ProTour Euro veterans and local American pioneers. We mix well together, and we can promise that we’ll be in every breakaway and every chase on every stage.”
Of those stages, his American team-mate Kiel Reijnen singles out the Sierra Road summit finish as being crucial to the classification of the 2011 event.
“The bottom is the steepest part, and attacks will be coming left and right. It’s a safe assumption to say the field will be in splinters within 2km,” he explained, drawing on his experience of racing there last year. “The run in to the climb is no less wicked, and last year it was a battle royale to make it to the front before the kick.”
He realises that a good move could even foil the specialists climbers, providing the timing is perfectly right. “A clever attack at the base of the climb or even before that could mix up the race before the readers even realize what is happening.”
The team will be one of eighteen in the race, which runs from May 15-22. It was set up to highlight Type 1 diabetes, and six out of the 21 riders on the team have the disease. One very important aim is to prove that having diabetes doesn’t rule out top-level sport.