Gert Steegmans ready to sacrifice individual sprints for team wins
Gert Steegmans
Belgian sprinter Gert Steegmans has said positivity and optimism are what attracted him to Team Radioshack. Speaking to teamradioshack.us from their training camp in Calpe, Spain, last week, Steegmans said, “Team Radioshack has a different mentality from the other teams I’ve been with in the past. They always think positively and that’s pretty strange in comparison to my previous experiences.”
The former Katusha rider has also given his support to the team’s focus on general classification positions over individual stage wins. When asked what his view was on an early season press conference where Director Johan Bruyneel said that Team Radioshack won’t be known as a team where lead out trains for the sprinters are commonplace, Steegmans said he has been aware of the focus for TRS this season and he is more than happy to play his part.
“I know Team Radioshack is more of a general classification team and I’m more of a sprinter, but I knew that when I signed up with them. If the team selects me for the Tour de France I will be focused on riding for the GC guys and I don’t mind doing that. I also knew that when I came here the main goal for someone like Lance Armstrong is the Tour de France and it’s not up to me to say ‘hey, Lance, I’ve won two stages and you’ve won seven Tours so how about we try and win another stage?’”
Despite being willing to play for the team, however, he is not willing to discount his chances of individual glory during the season.
“Maybe this year in the Tour we will sacrifice ourselves for Lance, but there might be other places we will contest the sprints. I heard that this year the World Championships will be on a pretty flat course so there is possibility of a bunch sprint. But lets first do the Classics, then see if I ride the Tour and then we can move on to the Worlds.
“Very often it is a bunch sprint in the Classics and so we will see what happens. It will be a progression as we go from here to Volte ao Algarve and from there it’s on to the opening Classics in Belgium and then Paris-Nice for some fine-tuning before the big ones.
“My form now is about 90 percent but there are still some small things we need to work on to get a little bit more power, but at this stage in the season I’m pretty satisfied at w here we are.”
As well as being confident about his own preparation, the Belgian speaks highly of the whole squad. “From what I’ve seen in the training camp we’re all good riders and all at a pretty good level. No one is struggling too much on the hills or on fast training so either we’re all in very good shape, or we’re all very bad! From here it’s down to the little details whether we’ll win a big race this season or not.
“We didn’t send a team to the Tour of Qatar, because it is not the best race in the world. It’s very dangerous and there’s a lot of wind, so it was thought better not to take the risk and to do a late training camp instead. This camp gave anyone who was a little behind a chance to work on their form.”
Despite claiming the glory of a stage win on the Champs Elysees at the end of the 2008 Tour de France, Steegmans doesn’t flag this as the highlight of his career so far. Instead he has fond memories the 2007 Tour in which he claimed stage victory in Stage 2 in the Belgian town of Ghent.
“When I was a young rider I had always dreamed about riding in the Tour and then there I was standing on the podium. It was also even more special because it was in my home country. I couldn’t really understand what was happening at the time, but no when I look back on it I still get a nice feeling.”
As an established member of the peloton, Steegmans is in a good position to comment on the changing nature of the sport. One of the main differences he sites since his introduction to professional cycling is the growth of its global appeal.
“Every year the peloton is becoming more and more international. There are a lot more languages being spoken and a lot more races going on the calendar. When I started the Tour Down Under was an easy race, a holiday for the riders. Now it’s a Pro Tour race, and a big serious race and much more important for the riders. You see more international races are getting bigger and more important and you see in the European calendar that some races are disappearing because there is no room for them. It’s a good thing that the sport gets bigger globally.”
“The next thing we might have a problem with is finding sponsors. We have teams like Sky and other projects coming into play. It is not only French and Spanish teams that are involved like it was before. The rest of the world is being represented and that is a good thing. Within a few years we might even get a Chinese team.”
Finally we asked Steegmans what he thought of the receptions of rock star proportions. “Spain is pretty calm because we take roads that there is nobody on. In Oz I never saw the amounts of people who were waiting for us at the hotel. It’s pretty cool and I think Team Radioshack has a lot of fans. I enjoy it and once they don’t come into my room that’s okay. “
By Colin McGann, staff writer
Photos: TeamRadioshack.com
