South African Daryl Impey races with RadioShack next season
Daryly Impey (Barloworld) will race alongside Lance Armstrong in 2010. (Image credit: Bettini Photo)
South African Daryl Impey will race for Team RadioShack next season. Impey, 24, looks forward to racing alongside seven-time Tour de France winner Lance Armstrong and having the direction of Johan Bruyneel.
"I can only learn from the guys I am with and I think it is going to raise my game as well," he told Cyclingnews. "The expectations are going to be a lot higher and I think that is going boost my performance as well."
Impey leaves the Italy-based Barloworld team of Claudio Corti after two years. He won a stage of the Herald Sun Tour last year. This April, he won a stage and the overall classification of the Tour of Turkey. It came despite breaking two vertebrae in a crash, caused by Theo Bos, in the final kilometre of the last stage. He returned to racing early last month.
Team Barloworld stops this season after losing its sponsor. The majority of the team's other English-speaking riders will join Team Sky.
Armstrong announced July 23, during the Tour de France, American company RadioShack would sponsor his new team for the next two years. He secured long-time team manager Bruyneel to make the switch with him from team Astana.
Bruyneel guided USA's Armstrong and Spain's Alberto Contador to their Tour de France wins. He was Impey's first contact with RadioShack earlier this year.
"I was with Robert [Hunter] in Como," continued Impey. "Bruyneel asked him about me and Robert said 'he's here with me' and passed the telephone. We talked about what was going on for the next year and about Barloworld stopping."
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Impey received a one-year contract from Bruyneel. The team's first race will be the same race Armstrong used to re-start his professional racing career this year, Australia's Tour Down Under.
"I hope to start off in Australia, but a big goal would be to ride the Tour de France with Lance and [Levi] Leipheimer. Definitely a Grand Tour, the Vuelta a España or the Tour de France, is my goal"
RadioShack will likely skip the Giro d'Italia, since it conflicts with the Tour of California's new May date.
Impey looks back over his years with Barloworld fondly. He is especially grateful to the care the team gave to him following his crash in Turkey.
He ends his season with several one-day Italian races and hopes to race the Giro di Lombardia on October 17.
