Cervelo's Endurance Tested
Founded in 2009, the Cervelo TestTeam enjoyed a promising first season in 2009. In 2010, the team is seriously contending for two titles at the Tour de France: the sprinters’ green jersey (points classification) and the yellow jersey (general classification).
Two days after the final day of the 2008 Tour, the Swiss team’s cofounder Gerard Vroomen was scouting for potential signees and approached Carlos Sastre, the Spanish veteran who had just won the race.
To Vroomen’s delight, he received a verbal agreement from Sastre to join his new venture, what would become Cervelo TestTeam in late 2008. Another big signing for the team was Norwegian sprint specialist Thor Hushovd, and by the end of the year, an internationally diverse roster of 25 riders had materialized.
In 2009, the team performed well in their first season, counting 4 stage wins in the Giro d’Italia, Hushovd’s claiming of the Tour’s green jersey and another two stage wins in the Volta a Catalunya among their successes.
For Dutchman Joop Alberda, the team’s manager since November 2009, the Cervelo TestTeam is his first taste of professional cycling.
Having coached the Dutch men’s volleyball team in the 1996 Atlanta Olympics, and worked with Russia’s national soccer team ahead of the 2008 European Championships, Alberda does have significant experience in sports management, however.
Vroomen had always expressed that the team intended to apply best practices from other sports to the management of his new cycling team, and the signing of Alberda was that very policy put in place.
Facing his first Tour, Alberda announced a team of nine riders to contend in this year’s Tour in January, with a clear intention to compete both for the green and yellow jerseys.
35 year-old Sastre remains the team’s hope for winning the general classification. The 2008 Tour-winner makes his tenth consecutive start in the race, and has said that his poor performances in last year’s Tour and this year’s Giro will not render him unfit to compete over the next three weeks.
Sastre has trained especially for the cobbled Stage 3, ensuring that the injuries he suffered in the Giro in May will not prevent him from completing the stage.
Hushovd, winner of the Tour’s points classification in 2005 and 2009, stands a good chance of repeating those successes in this year’s race if his team is ready to support his breakaways.
“We are fortunate to have many excellent riders who will be in good shape and ready for the Tour,” Alberda said to the press when the team was announced. “We are now looking forward to an exciting three weeks of racing.”
Closer to the race, the team did have to make some unexpected changes to its line-up. Having battled a knee injury throughout the start of the season, German sprinter Heinrich Haussler will be unfit to race after a crash in this year’s Tour de Suisse aggravated the injury.
Haussler will be replaced 30 year-old Briton David Lloyd, who will have to play a key role in supporting main contenders Sastre and Hushovd.
Another last-minute change was made Xavier Florencio was banned from racing in the Tour due to his failure to comply with internal rules. The Spanish rider had failed to report his taking of a medicine that contains ephedrine, a banned substance, to treat a rash.
It is at present unclear whether Florencio will be replaced by another rider, or if the Cervelo TestTeam will have to ride one man short in this year’s Tour.
Despite the late changes, most will contend that the two stars of the team, Sastre and Hushovd, both stand an outsider’s chance in their respective categories. If the Cervelo TestTeam can pull together, they may just prevail.
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