Juan Antonio Flecha is very angry at his team, saying he did not get the support he deserved as Team Rabobank captain. After crashing shortly before the Forest of Wallers-Arenberg, he said that the team management did not send anyone to help him back to the peloton.
More specifically, he told Sportwereld.be, he said that team-mates Sebastian Langeveld, Joost Posthuma and Tom Leezer were all in the lead group with him when someone drove against his rear wheel, causing the crash. "I asked team leader Adri van Houwelingen to have them wait for me. But what did he tell me [was] that there was no Rabobanker there. I called Posthuma myself, but it was too late."
The 30 year-old ended up riding 35 kilometres alone before catching the peloton. "If Sebastian Langeveld and Joost Posthuma had helped me immediately, I would have had the strength at the end of the race and not have used it up already. I am very disappointed in the team," the Spaniard told L'Equipe.
The Spaniard also noted that, "In that pursuit, I did not have the time to eat and drink. That helped to break me later."
It is not Flecha's first run-in with the team, as he has previously complained about not having the team management's confidence. He claims to have first talked to the management about the problem during the 2007 Tour de Luxembourg, in which he wore the leader's jersey for one stage, but said that little had been done since then.
Cyclingnews was not able to reach the other riders or van Houwelingen for comment.
