Tour de Romandie – Rik Verbrugghe «It’s an essential race for Mathias Frank in view of the Tour de France»

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24 April 2015

IAM Cycling

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The spring classics are almost over. There is only Liège-Bastogne-Liège, commonly known as La Doyenne, to complete, and then the riders will find themselves with a menu full of stage races. Of course, the WorldTour 2015 season has already been launched with races like Tour Down Under, Paris-Nice, and Tirreno-Adriatico. Now it is time for the Tour of Romandie, which many pros consider the first major step towards final preparations for the grand tours like the Giro dItalia and the Tour de France. And IAM Cycling is prepared to make every effort to play a leading role in the tour through the French-speaking part of Switzerland.

IAM Cycling Paris Nice Verbrugghe Rik

Sports manager Rik Verbrugghe is well aware of the importance this race holds for his team after an early season punctuated by 10 podium places, including four victories. We are racing with home field advantage, if I can borrow that term from other sports. But that just means that we need to perform, even if the race will be very challenging with riders like Froome, Nibali, and Quintana to face. However, we are coming with an ambitious Mathias Frank, who has marked this race as the first major goal of the season. In 2014, he only just missed the podium, taking 4^th overall. This is an essential race for Mathias in view of the Tour de France. Personally, I am expecting not only Mathias to race well, but also the other riders on the team, too, and to gain confidence. That will only be a bonus for Brändle, Clement, Fumeaux, Hollenstein, Pantano, Warbasse and Wyss.

Even if the results will inevitably be an important element for Verbrugghe, the Belgian sports director will want to have the opportunity to observe his riders on all the various terrains. We will do everything we can to try to win a stage and achieve the highest ranking possible, but Im not going to make a big drama if we finish 5^th on the general classification after having a great race. For me the big surprise for the Tour of Romandie will be what happens in the team time trial. All three grand tours this year will have a team time trial. And we have tried to build the team with that in mind since we have good rouleurs like Brändle, Clement, Frank, Hollenstein. We are a cohesive team, and in order to have a good place at the end of the day, we will need to find the small details that make the difference. Then we will just have to do our utmost in order to launch Mathias Frank.

Tour of Romandie (Tuesday, April 28^th Sunday, May 3^rd)

Tuesday, April 28^th: La Vallée de Joux – Juraparc, TTT 19.2 km (15h30 17h10)
Wednesday, April 29^th: Apples Saint-Imier, 166.1 km (13h 17h10)
Thursday, April 30^th: Moutier – Porrentruy, 173.2 km (13h 17h10)
Friday, May 1^st: La Neuveville – Fribourg, 169.8 km (13h 17h08)
Saturday, May 2^nd: Fribourg Champex-Lac, 166.1 km (12h30 17h06)
Sunday, May 3^rd: Lausanne – Lausanne, ITT 17.3 km (11h09 15h15)