Tinkoff-Saxo’s Polish climber Rafal Majka has shown his promising talent for multiple seasons since he joined the team in 2011. But this season sparked his big breakthrough with two mountain stage wins and the polka dot jersey in Tour de France, the overall win in Tour de Pologne as well as several top results during the season. Before heading off to the team building camp on Kilimanjaro, Rafal acknowledged that 2014 took his career to the next level.
“I’m really satisfied with my season. In the previous years, I’ve done well, worked hard for the team and gotten some good personal results. But now I’ve started winning, which was the one thing missing in the past years. The team has supported me and I was able to step up”, says Rafal Majka.
After a demanding race program starting with Volta ao Algarve in February, Rafal Majka concluded his season in late august. Since then the 25-year old has stayed away from the spotlight resting, recovering and training at home.
“Since USA Pro Challenge, I haven’t done any races. But I had a very hard schedule in the first half of the season with two Grand Tours. So for me to improve even more, I had to rest and recover. I’ve been training 2-3 hours a day to maintain my strength, and when the entire team gathers on Gran Canaria, I’ll start preparing for 2015”, explains Majka, who still believe there’s room for improvement:
“I still have to work on some key areas, if I want to become even stronger in the big stage races. During the winter, I will focus on my time trial. Both the team and I know that there’re still quite a lot of seconds to gain here. I’m really motivated and I share the same big ambitions as the team. We want to deliver results in the races of 2015 and perhaps I will also look into doing some of the classics in the future”.
