One year after he won the Tour of Britain and three days after taking the Ponferrada stage of the Vuelta a España, Michael Albasini and the GreenEdge team have confirmed the Swiss rider will be part of the setup in 2012.
Albasini is moving to the team after three years as part of the HTC Highroad team, during which time he has both achieved personal success and also been part of some of the team’s big triumphs. He brings considerable experience to the team, and also his versatility; it is the latter quality which general manager Shayne Bannan emphasises.
“Michael is good at just about everything,” the Australian said. “As he has just shown at the Tour of Spain, he’s pretty hard to beat in a sprint from a breakaway group. He won the mountainous Tour of Austria in 2009 and has two stage victories at the Tour de Suisse to his name, so there’s plenty of evidence that he’s a solid climber. And he’s always near the top half of the results sheet in a time trial. Plus he’s always been one of the key workers for his previous teams.”
Viewers of this year’s Vuelta will have seen Albasini’s ability on stage 13. He was part of a large breakaway group clear for much of the day and despite using up some energy in an unsuccessful move with Angel Madrazo Ruiz (Movistar Team) inside the final three kilometres, was still strong enough to win a 20 man gallop to the line.
That victory marked the first GrandTour stage win for Albasini and has boosted his belief in his abilities. “It was near the end of the second week of a big tour and that was my third day in a row of trying to get in a breakaway and going full gas. So it gives me the confidence that I can do it again,” he explained.
“Before the stage we were talking about just surviving the stage, so to win such a difficult day like
that it’s even more significant. It was no gift; I had to work very hard for it.”
It caps off what has been a memorable time with the HTC Highroad team, and also a good season where he has clocked up several important results. He was fourth in the Tour of Oman in February, won the mountains classification in the Vuelta al Pais Vasco and took twelfth in Flèche Wallonne in April. In May he won a stage and placed third overall in the Bayern-Rundfarht, then the following month he outsprinted five riders to take the Kanton Aargau – Gippingen.
Those results meant that he was high on the list for the new team, which was shopping around for riders. He needed a new squad after HTC Highroad decided to stop, and so the agreement came about.
“When you’re in the peloton you always hear rumours…I heard so many good things about GreenEDGE, which got me interested. But they called me. This was the first time a team has called me,” he said.
“This means GreenEDGE values me as a rider and has confidence in me. This is important because I am a rider who needs the confidence of the team. But that’s not the only reason I’m joining the team. Once I looked at the people involved and the infrastructure already in place, it was an easy decision.”
Albasini has helped a lot of others to win in recent years but recognises now that he will have a very strong chance to further build his own palmares. His recent success has fuelled his self-belief and his hunger, and he indicates he’s now ready to step up a level.
“For every rider winning a Grand Tour stage is a dream come true. Now that I have proven I can I dream of doing it again,” he explained. “I’ll also target the shorter stage races and the Ardennes Classics. They’re the races I think I can get some good results in for the team.”