After his annus horribilis of 2015, Simon Gerrans is ready to start his season with a third national Australian road race title for Orica-GreenEdge.
12-months ago Gerrans was forced to watch the race from the side-lines as he recovered from a broken collarbone. He then crashed and broke his elbow on his return to racing at Strade Bianchi. While there was brief respite with a stint in the maglia rosa at the Giro d'Italia, a broken wrist at the Tour de France saw him abandon the grand tour with luck all but deserting the 35-year-old.
"It was different 12-months ago, it was always going to be really difficult to back up last season off such a fantastic year in 2014," Gerrans told reporters. "That was a year that everything went so right for me and then to be side-lined, I thought the first set back of the year was just a minor set back and then from there, we'll move on to a good season. Things just didn't get any better so I guess the hunger is there to just get back to that top level again after such an up and down year in 2015."
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In 2014 Gerrans won the national title ahead of Cadel Evans (BMC) and then defeated the Tour de France champion again as he won the Tour Down Under for a third time. Gerrans is looking to emulate his January success of two years ago, starting by claiming the green and gold jersey in Sunday's 183.6km road race.
"I am feeling good and I am looking forward to racing after what has been a pretty solid pre-season and like I said quite a long way out, I was going to put a big emphasis on the early season," he said. "I am looking forward to testing the condition now, obviously I've done a lot of training, not a lot of racing, a few club level criteriums. Sunday's going to be the first real test for me."
While some riders might be content with two-national titles to their name, Gerrans expressed his desire to win the jersey has only grown since first doing so in 2012.
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