The sports management and team owner Bjarne Riis announced the nine riders who will represent Team Saxo-Tinkoff in this year’s Tour de France.
These are the following riders: – Michael Rogers, Australia – Nicolas Roche, Ireland – Matteo Tosatto, Italy – Daniele Bennati, Italy – Sergio Paulinho, Portugal – Alberto Contador, Spain – Jesus Hernandez, Spain – Benjamin Noval, Spain – Roman Kreuziger, Czech Republic.
Philippe Mauduit, Team Saxo-Tinkoff senior sports director for the Tour de France, is convinced the squad perfectly fits the overall goal of winning the race. “We’re coming to the Tour to win the race with Alberto. So of course we have tried to pick the riders who best fit into our overall strategy, and we have tried to identify and bring together all the skills we need on the team to give Alberto the best possible support and protection during the three weeks on both flat way and in hectic finals, on hills, in the mountains and in the team time trial. We believe we have reached a very strong squad, a real all-round fighters with a lot of important experience from Grand Tours. So we are confident Team Saxo-Tinkoff will put a distinctive mark on this race, and we look forward to three exciting weeks in France.”
Team owner Bjarne Riis emphasizes versatility in the squad as one of the keys to achieving success in the French Grand Tour. “I think we have found a good mix of riders. We have a strong group of climbers on the team, we have riders who must take care of Alberto on flat road and in the wind, and I’m sure that we shall perform a good team time trial too. At the same time we can with this crew run both aggressive and put pressure on, or we can be more controlling, depending on what we need. Ultimately, it is the versatility is so important if you want to win the race, ” pointing out that competition for places on the team has been hard.
“This year the competition to run on our Tour team has been sharper than in many years. More than nine selected riders had certainly earned a place, and in our group of reserves we have Nicki Sørensen, Chris Anker Sørensen and Michael Mørkøv three very competent and form strong guys that are ready to step in if necessary. And Matti Breschel has been brilliant running of late. Personally it has been a very difficult decision not to have a Danish touch in the squad. But we have committed ourselves to point to the group that we believe have the best composition in relation to achieving our overall goal to win, “says Bjarne Riis.
