Breschel escapes the cold

After enduring the harsh climate during the CSC team's annual training camp in Northern Norway, where temperatures dipped as low as minus 15 degrees Celsius, Dane Matti Breschel headed to the warmer climate of Tenerife to launch into training for the 2008 season.

"I'm here together with Martin Pedersen," Breschel said on his web log on feltet.dk. "We're taking this little training camp here to get away from the bad weather. Going from minus 15 degrees to 20-25 degrees Celsius is quite a difference. The training starts for real now, and you start looking forward for the new season to begin. And it's also about time to race some kilometres," said Breschel, who will begin the season at the Tour de San Luis, Argentina, from January 22-27.

Breschel will skip the opening ProTour event, the Tour Down Under, opting to head to Argentina with Andy and Fränk Schleck. "I think that Anders Lund will do the race too, and JJ [Juan José Haedo - ed.], of course. I think it'll be good. It should give us some racing kilometres and some warmth."

Breschel's season will pick up in California with the team's official training camp followed by Het Volk, Kuurne-Bruxelles-Kuurne, Tirreno-Adriatico – "all the cobble stone classics," Breschel said.

"The race schedule is more or less similar to that of this year, except that I won't do the Giro d'Italia, but perhaps I'll do the Vuelta a España. I hope that, but it's still quite a long time from now. First of all, it's about preparing properly for the Classics," explained the 23 year-old.