Janez Brajkovic to ride with his old team Astana in the coming season – Cycling News
The biggest news in the cycling world this year was the merger of two of the top cycling teams RadioShack and Leopard Trek for the next season. Both teams are joining hands to form a new squad and the chosen name is RadioShack-Nissan-Trek.
A lot of questions were raised with the merger and the biggest of all was obviously the future of the riders as two different teams can clearly hold more riders than one. Almost all the cyclists have already decided about their future teams as Janez Brajkovic
has also confirmed the news that he will be riding for team Astana in 2012.
Brajkovic started his professional career in 2005 by joining Discovery Channel team and stayed with them till 2007. He moved to team Astana for 2008-9 and had a terrific performance as he finished the Giro di Lombardia 2008 at second position overall. He
became the Slovenian National Time Trial Champion in 2009 and also secured the second position at the Giro del Trentino 2009.
Janez joined team RadioShack in 2010 which has many of his Astana team-mates and also his manager Johan Bruyneel. The Slovenian rider had an impressive start with RadioShack as he won the Criterium du Dauphine 2010 and also had a superb Tour de France the
same year. Unfortunately, in 2011 Brajkovic could not perform to his potential during the Tour de France as he crashed during stage 5.
After the announcement of team RadioShack merging with Leopard Trek, Brajkovic was hopeful to find a place in the new squad’s roaster but his name was not included in the team. The 27-year-old had no other option but to join his old team Astana as the news
has been disclosed by FFC.fr, a French cycling federation’s website.
Astana team manager Giuseppe Martinelli stated that Brajkovic’s inclusion in the team can really help them achieve their goals for 2012. He said, “He is a strong rider who will held an important place in the Pro Team Astana. With Roman Kreuziger they will
form a key pair for the Grand Tours and will be leaders of the team.”
While commenting about Johan Bruyneel he mentioned on his twitter page, "JB [Johan Bruyneel] never tried to sell me elsewhere, he'd never do that." Janez is looking ahead to ride at the Tour de France for the coming two seasons and will aim at the general
classifications. He has been in the leading role during his time with RadioShack along with Chris Horner, Andreas Kloden and Levi Leipheimer. It impact Janez will have as he rides for Astana will be interesting to see.
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