Paris-Roubaix winner says team has strength in depth
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Johan Van Summeren took part in the sprint training too(Image credit: Lucas Gilman)
Van Summeren and Dekker on the front(Image credit: Lucas Gilman)
Johan Van Summeren signs an autograph(Image credit: Cyclingnews.com)
Johan Van Summeren didn't realize there's a difference between argyle and plaid.(Image credit: Mark Johnson)
If any ride in 2011 illustrated that cycling is a team sport it was perhaps Johan Vansummeren’s winning performance in Paris-Roubaix. The Garmin rider wasn’t the favourite going into the race, he wasn’t the strongest either, but clever team tactics and timing saw him snatch a thrilling victory.
With another Classics campaign just weeks away Vansummeren has been training with his teammates in Spain but will head to Qatar for the start of his racing season.
In this exclusive video for Cyclingnews, the Paris-Roubaix winner talks about his expectations for the year. Yes. he’s looking forward to it [ed. has to say that] but he also admits that he’s ‘a little scared’ about the prospect of being on the radar in such pressurised races.
The team are without Thor Hushovd this year but the Classics squad remains competitive – Heinrich Haussler is fitter after a year of full racing, Fabian Wegmann has been drafted in for the Ardennes and Sébastien Rosseler joins from RadioShack.
Ramunas Navardauskas, who kept Van Summeren out of the Tour de France team last year, is also expected to race the spring classics.
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Daniel Benson was the Editor in Chief at Cyclingnews.com between 2008 and 2022. Based in the UK, he joined the Cyclingnews team in 2008 as the site's first UK-based Managing Editor. In that time, he reported on over a dozen editions of the Tour de France, several World Championships, the Tour Down Under, Spring Classics, and the London 2012 Olympic Games. With the help of the excellent editorial team, he ran the coverage on Cyclingnews and has interviewed leading figures in the sport including UCI Presidents and Tour de France winners.
