Sébastien Rosseler has signed a two-year deal with Garmin-Cervélo that will see the Belgian ride in Argyle colours through 2013. According to his personal website, Rosseler was lured to the team by Jonathan Vaughters, particularly to be part of the team for the new UCI Road World Championships Team Time Trial next year. For the first time in its history, the UCI will have a team time trial event for ProTeam and Pro Continental trade teams.
Rosseler rode for the Quick Step team from 2005 until he moved to Team RadioShack in 2010. He is known to be a strong time trialist and won the individual time trial in Driedaagse van De Panne this year before going on to take the overall victory too. He was the first member of the new RadioShack team last year to win a race for the team when he soloed to victory on stage four of the Volta ao Algarve.
Garmin-Cervélo won the team time trial in the Tour de France this year and the team time trial championships will no doubt be a major goal for the American team.
It is unknown whether the 30 year old will still compete with Team RadioShack for the rest of the year as a tear to a tendon in his knee has kept him from competition for several months. The injury kept him from completing the Tour of Romandie. Then, after working on getting the knee fixed, he went to the Tour of Luxembourg in the beginning of June but again had to abandon on stage two.
At the time, Rosseler expressed his disappointment with the injury, “Again it’s the same injury from Romandie. A little muscle around the knee is torn. I felt good in the last few weeks, but here we have to cope with very short but very steep climbs and now I feel the pain again. The only thing I can do is rest again. It’s so frustrating.”
His priority now will be to ensure he recovers completely from the injury, race again if possible this year, then have a fresh start next season with Garmin-Cervélo.