The Predictor-Lotto team has been announced for the 2007 Vuelta a Espana (1 - 23 September) and the prospect of another 3 weeks of Cadel Watch looms. This time, though, I will be consigned to the computer and viewing the streamed feed on cycling.tv - I'm not sure how I'm going to go with another 3 weeks of getting to bed at 2am, catching 4 hours of sleep and then up at 6 to get ready for my real job.
The named team is : Mario Aerts, Christophe Brandt, Bart Dockx, Cadel Evans, Chris Horner, Josep Jufre, Bert Roesems, Roy Sentjens, Wim Vanhuffel.
A little confusion was thrown in with initial reports that Robbie McEwen was also going to be a starter, which would have once again split the team with having to ride for a sprinter as well as a major GC contender. Instead, Robbie will be concentrating on races such as the Eneco Tour, Paris-Brussels, Circuit Franco-Belge, Paris-Tours.
It will be very interesting to see to what extent the Predictor-Lotto team can work for Cadel Evans when their main focus is on a single goal. Evans is hoping that a strong showing in the Vuelta will boost him further up the Pro Tour rankings and provide him with the ideal lead in to the World Championships at Stuttgart.
I’d love to see Evans pull this off, after missing both the Dauphine and the Tour by tiny margins. Historically, of course, the odds are not on this side. How many times, since the Vuelta moved to September, have we watched a Tour nearly-man (Beloki, Sastre, Botero) go to the Vuelta as the obvious favorite, only to be soundly outclassed by guys we’ve never heard of before (Aitor Gonzales, Isidro Nozal, Santi Perez)? Of course, all the riders in the latter parentheses have since been torpedoed with drug charges, so maybe if the Vuelta gets as paranoid about dope as the Tour we won’t see some dubious dark-horse win.
Yes, the effort of backing up so soon after a gruelling race like the Tour de France is a huge ask and hardly surprising that it’s not possible to back up. I guess you only have to look as far as Levi Leipheimer in the Tour of Germany, just three weeks earlier Jens Voigt would have gotten nowhere near him up a mountain as brutal as Rettenbachferner.