Italian riding sensation Ivan Basso optimistic about his form – Cycling News
Ivan Basso who was seen struggling during the Tour de France as he lost time in both the team time trials and individual time trials as he finished 8th overall in the Tour that he had higher expectations with.
Basso finished the race 7:23 seconds behind the Australian Cadel Evans who won the Tour de France, 2011. He stated that he has no regrets with his performance during the mega tour and is focusing on the coming events.
Ivan stated that he is still motivated and has experienced a lot of ups and downs in his career but he is still hopeful and is positive about his strengths and that he will race in Giro di Emilia and the Tour of Lombardy before the next season.
Basso admitted the fact that he could not launch the attack at the Tour de France because of his form but it was impossible to beat Cadel Evans and Schleck brothers no matter how fit he is as he said, “That happens when your form isn’t perfect. You push
a bigger gear to try and compensate for your lack of rhythm but there was little any one could do against Cadel and the Schelcks.” He further added that all the other cyclists were competing for the fourth, fifth and sixth positions.
The 33-year-old cyclist believes that the main reason why he could not perform to his potential at the Tour de France was because of the crash during training camp on Mount Etna that needed 15 stitches and he was unable to train for two weeks as commented
about his performance, ”People can criticise me but my conscience is clear. I did more than 40,000 metres of climbing in the month before the Tour and may be that was too much.”
The Italian cyclist is hopeful to come back in next season and show some good performances in the stage races as his team-mate Vincenzo Nibali is leading the team Liquigas-Cannondale in Spain.
He has not yet decided about the 2012 season and will only finalise his schedule after the routes of Tour de France and Giro‘d Italia are finalised and it will be interesting to see how the 33-year-old performs in the coming season.
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