Read the two, daily interviews with the Big Loop's sporting or team managers. For the letour.fr site, they set out their aims and strategy and review the form of their riders.
"Sandy’s an attacker by nature"
Yvon Madiot (FRANÇAISE DES JEUX)
You came close to a stage victory on several occasions in 2005. Is this still the main aim this year?
Yes, and there are several possibilities. Unfortunately, the withdrawal of Bradley McGee has dashed the perspective of bringing off the prologue, but we have other potential winners for other stages. On the flat, Bernhard Eisel will be in the reckoning for the sprints, despite tough competition in this department. Then, with the hillier terrain, we’ll be counting on Sandy Casar and Philippe Gilbert, who are quite capable of making it in a good breakaway. And there’ll certainly be some of those because CSC and T-Mobile can’t chase after everybody. In certain cases, it may even be in their interest if there’s another scenario similar to "Voeckler 2004". After all, it doesn’t only happen to others.
Sandy Casar finished 6th on the last Tour of Italy. Has this result given him fresh ambitions?
He’s not the sort of guy to look for complications, so I don’t think he’ll be trying to change his strategy. Sandy’s an attacker by nature and his main idea is to win a stage. In Italy he dared to do this and so earned himself a good position in the general classification. The same could happen again, but it’s difficult to make predictions.
Everyone is looking forward to Damiano Cunego’s first Tour. What are his ambitions?
Cunego knows that the Tour de France is a race which requires a lot of maturity. So, primarily, he’s come to learn and he doesn’t really have any ambition at general classification level, on the contrary even. Firstly because, in these conditions, the pressure will be off his shoulders. Secondly because his aim is to assert himself in an attractive mountain stage. And for that, it’s better if he doesn’t present too much of a threat for the leaders.
That’s quite modest for a rider able to win the Tour of Italy on his first outing…
Yes, but he mustn’t be in too much of a rush. He can’t present himself as a potential winner, in particular because he’s not fast enough in the time trials. As with Ivan Basso, the years of experience will help him to become a pretender. For the time being, just finishing will be fine. Reaching Paris is an enormous emotion for any rider. Afterwards, the future’s his back yard.
What are the other aims for Lampre?
I hope that during the first week Bennati or Ballan will provide a few good surprises. For the time trial, we have Marzio Bruseghin, who’s just won his national title in the speciality. Then there’s Patxi Vila, who is capable of asserting himself on a mountain stage like he did on Paris-Nice.
The team: Damiano Cunego (Ita), Alessandro Ballan (Ita), Daniele Bennati (Ita), Marzio Bruseghin (Ita), Salvatore Commesso (Ita), Daniele Righi (Ita), Paolo Tiralongo (Ita), Tadej Valjavec (Sln), Patxi Vila (Spa).
