Mario Aerts ready to support team HTC in a new role of Directeur Sportif – Cycling News
Omega Pharma Rider Mario Aerts is a Belgian professional cyclist as he started his career in 1997 and he is amongst the few cyclist in the sport who holds the honour of finishing the Tour de France, Vuelta a Espana and Giro d Italia in the same year, 2007.
He is suffering from heart problems and has decided to end his cycling career by the end of 2011 and will be seen under a new role of directeur sportif in the same team Omega Pharma Lotto.
He has mainly worked as a domestique throughout his career and has helped his team to secure a large number of wins in the past years as he achieved the biggest win of his career in 2002 by winning the La Fleche Wallone. He has been a great help to his team-mates
Philippe Gilbert and Cadel Evans while the cyclists is now hoping to ride in the final race of his career at the GP Fourmies.
Aerts made the announcement of his retirement from the cycling career because he is not comfortable with his health and is struggling with cardiac arrhythmia. He mentioned that in the past few months the problem has really grown big on him and he could not
continue cycling under such conditions as he said, “last year the discomfort disappeared after a while, but now it seems more persistent.”
The Belgian mentioned that he is looking forward to manage the team HTC in the future as he said about his role in the team, “They certainly won’t throw me into the Tour straight away, and I’ll have to respect the hierarchy, but this time I don’t mind. The
important thing is that I can continue to work in an environment that I know and that I have another goal.”
The 36-year-old mentioned that he has accepted the position and is looking forward to benefit the team in his new role but it is a new position for him and he will face difficulties adjusting to the position initially. He mentioned that he has not officially
signed the contract yet but it will be done soon as he quoted, “The contract isn’t signed yet, but that will come.”
It will be interesting to see how the Belgian handles the new turn in his professional career and the good aspect for him is that he is already familiar with the working environment of team HTC.
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