Although he has not been selected for this year’s Tour de France, Robbie McEwen hasn’t ruled out riding the race again before finally hanging up his wheels after a long professional career.
The multiple stage winner had hoped to compete this year but with his RadioShack team featuring four overall contenders and chasing high placings plus the team classification, the emphasis is not on sprinting.
The Australian rider also admits that he hasn’t had the sort of results this season to level for a place on the Tour team. His best result to date was second on a stage of the Tour Down Under, plus fifth in Schledeprijs. He rode the Giro d’Italia, but eighth on stage two was the best result posted by him prior to missing the time cut on stage nine to Mount Etna.
McEwen was ill after the April classics, and this impacted upon his buildup for the Italian Grand Tour. “I ended up going to the Giro completely unprepared, no race before it and not even a good training block,” he told the Sydney Morning Herald’s Rupert Guinness. “It was super hard and I got absolutely nothing out of it.
“After that my next race was Tour de Suisse. I had no lead-up race and I didn’t go in firing and it was also a really, really hard course with no full-bunch sprints.
As a result, it wasn’t that surprising to him that RadioShack opted for other riders. “I haven’t been able to show big form to change their tour tactics,” he admitted.
Tour of California winner Chris Horner, Tour de Suisse victor Levi Leiphemier, Andreas Klöden and Jani Brajkovic will be the four leaders in the race, while Markel Irizar, Dmitriy Muravyev, Sérgio Paulinho, Yaroslav Popovych and Haimar Zubeldia will have supporting roles.
McEwen has previously admitted that 2010 could be his final season, although more recently he has mentioned the possibility that he will continue for another year. A new Australian team called GreenEdge is being set up and is aiming for both a ProTeam licence plus a Tour ride. His experience could prove invaluable, and it is likely that he will be one of the riders on its list of possible team targets.
“It’s still completely open,” he said, when asked if he might continue in the pro ranks. “I haven’t made any decisions about next year. I haven’t had any concrete discussions with anybody either. I am just a rider who is at the end of contract this year, and over the next month or two I will start talking to some people and make some decisions.”
McEwen has won three green jerseys in the Tour. His long history with the race means that he would offer a great deal of experience to a team riding it for the first time. But as of now, he isn’t sure whether or not he will be back. “I don’t know…it’s too hard to say,” he stated, rating the chances at 50-50.
The months ahead will likely determine what happens now with his career. He has said that he wants to go to the Vuelta a España and ride well there prior to the world road race championships. If his form is good, he may well opt to continue for another season. As for another Tour, that would depend completely on how the first half of 2012 goes.