Frank Schleck targets Classics and Tour de France challenge in 2011
Frank Schleck, winner of this year's Tour de Suisse, has backed his new Luxembourgian team to perform in the Classics and the Tour de France next year.
Schleck, who announced his departure from Bjarne Riis' Saxo Bank team in July, will race for Biran Nygaard's new team, which has recently concluded partnerships with Mercedes and bike manufacturer Trek. Schleck's younger brother Andy will join him in the
move.
"The goals will be the Classics and the Tour de France," the Luxembourgian told Cyclingnews about the new team's ambitions for next season. "I believe we can win the Tour next year but the opportunity to ride for this team came out of Luxembourg and obviously
we are very proud of our country and want to be good ambassadors."
The Schleck brothers are due to be joined by several of the supporting riders from Saxo Bank, but Nygaard will not only rely on the Schlecks in 2011.
Among other riders, HTC-Columbia's Maxime Monfort and Fabian Cancellara, Saxo Bank's unrivalled time trialist, have been linked with the new team.
"It's not going to be 'the Schleck team' though. It's going to be a team that we're part of and we'll go for the Tour. I'm not going to lie and say that the team for the Tour de France won't see Andy and me being leaders but we'll have a strong team with a
lot of good guys."
Tough recovery from Tour crash
Schleck, who came fifth overall in September's Vuelta a Espana, crashed during the third stage of the Tour de France in July, a race in which his younger brother finished second in the general classification.
"What most people forget is that you need to recover physically and mentally. Mentally I thought I was still doing the Tour with team even though I was just watching them on television every day. It's been a long hard season. I'm very satisfied with how
things have gone."
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