Joaquin Rodriguez fired up as team Katusha moves to Vuelta a Espana with a powerful squad
Joaquin Rodriguez is in perfect form before the Vuelta as he has just finished racing in Vuelta a Burgos as he finished third in the final stage 5 and managed to secure the first position at the final general classifications as he finished the Tour first
in 15:12:34. Daniel Moreno Fernandez was at second position with 36 seconds behind and Juan Jose Cobo 45 seconds behind at third position.
Vuelta a Espana is starting on August 20 and will extend up to 20 days as the cyclists will line up for their positions at the podium on September 11.
The 32-year-old who finished fourth in the final general classifications in the last year’s Vuelta is looking forward for the mega event as he gets ready to represent his team Katusha in the Vuelta as he commented about his current form, “I’m not hiding
that I’m going to race to win.”
The Spaniard started his career in 2001 with team Once-Eroski and his first appearance in the Vuelta a Espana was in 2003 when he won the stage 8 of the Tour and won the mountains classifications in 2005.
In 2008, Rodriguez finished 6th overall in Vuelta a Espana with 7th in 2008 and 4th overall in the 2010 Vuelta a Espana.
Rodriguez was looking good in the last year’s Vuelta as he won the leader’s jersey after stage 16 but could not put up against the clock as he lost precious time to HTC cyclist, Peter Velits who finished ahead of Rodriguez. He has improved his time trialling
skills that has made an impact in the recent tours notably in the Giro d’ Italia and he can really stretch the extra yard in the only 47 kilometre time trial stage in the Vuelta a Espana 2011.
Joaquim mentioned that he had been working on improving his time trial expertise and had made significant improvements as he said, “My performance against the clock have improved at the Giro and the Dauphine but it doesn’t mean that I’m becoming a time trial
specialist. I’ve worked really hard on riding better than I did in Penafiel last year. I hope to avoid another disaster like that this year.”
Alexandr Pliuschin is the new addition to the team as he joined Katusha in 2010 and the 24-year-old will be participating in his second mega Tour after the Tour de France 2010 and is hopeful as he mentioned that his main role in the mega event will be to
support his team’s leader Rodriguez.
Under-23 Tour of Flanders 2007 winner Pliushin added that he has done some long training in the mountains and will come up with his best performance in the Vuelta a Espana.
Joaquin mentioned that he is optimistic with the Tour as he knows that his team is in great shape especially Losada, Moreno and Horrach as he said, “I go to the Vuelta with the advantage of having a great team around me. I was not the only one from Katusha
going well at Burgos. ”
Rodriguez will have the support of his strong team Katusha in the Vuelta a Espana 2011 as he will steps forward alongside some of the best athletes in the sport that includes, Joan Horrach Ripoll, Vladimir Karpets, Aliaksandr Kuchynski, Alberto Losada, Daniel
Moreno, Luca Paolini, Alexandr Pliuschin, Joaquim Rodriguez, Yuriy Trofimov, and Eduard Vorganov.
It will be interesting to see how team Katusha performs in the coming tour as most of their key players have already kicked their forms just before the start of Vuelta a Espana, 2011.
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