Spaniard hopeful of returning to top form after tough season
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Beñat Intxausti Elorriaga (Team Sky)(Image credit: Team Sky)
Benat Intxausti Elorriaga finishes stage 5 at the Tour of Britain.(Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)
Benat Intxausti (Movistar) celebrates as he crosses the finish line to win the 8th stage of the Giro d'Italia.
Beñat Intxausti will spend another day in the mountains jersey(Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)
Wout Poels (Team Sky) wins overall title at the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana(Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)
Beñat Intxausti (Team Sky) has added cyclo-cross races to his winter schedule in a bid to build up his form ahead of the 2017 season. Intxausti endured a torrid year, racing just 15 days in 2016, and was keen to get back on the bike.
He posed the idea of racing cyclo-cross to Sky, who agreed, so long as it was merely a training exercise and not a full programme. After an urgent bike delivery, Intxausti set out to test his new steeds at the weekend.
"They set me up with two practically new bikes," Intxausti said. "[The bikes] arrived on Friday at eight in the evening – the race was on Sunday. They had to be ridden, and on Saturday I went to try them in Amezaga: to fine-tune the bike, the measurements, the tubulars, one day before I was to compete with the new bikes."
"I have always asked the teams if I could do a race as a form of training and preparation, and in this case I have had the fortune that the team have said yes. [It is] all about training, not to compete and have objectives, without thinking in the long-term."
Intxausti rode cyclo-cross prior to turning professional in 2007, but it has since taken a back seat to his road ambitions. Intxausti lined up at the Trofeo San Andres in Amezaga de Zuia on Sunday. He didn't finish, but the race and build-up gave him almost two hours riding.
"It was nice, it's a return to the past and, the truth is, I enjoyed it a lot," he said. "With the warm-up and the race, it was an hour and a half, almost two hours. Afterwards, I extended it with a ride home on my road bike to make it a bit longer and to simulate the efforts of the race. Now I will relax so that later in the week I will do some much longer training."
Intxausti will be hoping to hit the ground running in 2017, after a disappointing first season with Team Sky. He came into this year with high expectations on his shoulders and started well with third overall at the Volta a la Comunitat Valenciana at the start of February. However, it fell apart soon afterwards when a bout of mononucleosis put him on the sidelines until mid-June. He rode the Tour de Slovénie and the Tour de Pologne but left the latter after just three stages and hasn't raced since.
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Despite the disruptions, he remains hopeful that he can re-find the form he once had. "I have a lot of ambitions," he said of his 2017 season. "After so much time lost, sick and sad, I finally I want to enjoy the bike in good health. I am constantly gaining form; we are still in December, but with calm, patience and work I hope to return to where I was before."
Intxausti will be back in the mud this week for the Asteasuko Ziklo-krosa in Asteasu on Thursday. Following that, he will head to Mallorca for a pre-Christmas training camp where his focus will return to the road.
