This time, it's for keeps, but when Tom Dumoulin came within a mountain pass of winning the Vuelta a España in 2015, he was, by his own admission, something of an accidental Grand Tour contender. After abandoning the Tour de France with a broken collarbone – right when he was on the cusp of becoming the first Dutchman to wear yellow since Erik Breukink in 1989 – Dumoulin arrived at the Vuelta with the vague aim of building towards the World Championships and the more precise brief of preparing sprints for John Degenkolb.
A stinging attack on the short, sharp haul to Cumbre del Sol changed everything. Dumoulin's stage victory there put him into the overall lead at the end of the opening week, and seemed to press fast forward on his career plans. Like any fine time triallist with the ability to climb, there had been murmurs about Dumoulin one day targeting Grand Tours, but then the same thing had, at various times, been said of men like Chris Boardman, Fabian Cancellara and Tony Martin. That Vuelta, where Dumoulin's eventual 6th place finish was scant reflection of the quality of his display, demonstrated far more than mere potential.
Even so, Dumoulin refused to allow himself to be painted into a corner. His long-standing plan for 2016 had always been to target the Olympic Games time trial in Rio, and he would spend most of his tenure in the pink jersey at last year's Giro d'Italia insisting – truthfully as it turned out – that he had pressed pause on his Grand Tour ambitions until 2017. Having almost stumbled into Vuelta victory two seasons ago, Dumoulin arrives at this year's Giro having meticulously planned his assault at the summit.
ADVERTISEMENT
"Honestly, I really didn't go to the Vuelta in 2015 with the ambition of doing the GC. I wasn't even feeling so good at altitude camp before that Vuelta, so it was really a surprise for me to end up going for the GC there," Dumoulin tells Cyclingnews from Tenerife, where he put the finishing touches to his Giro build-up. "That will definitely be different at the Giro this year. I am going there with GC ambitions. That's the objective, and that's what the team is built around. That's definitely new for me."
Read more on this article:
- Dumoulin confirmed for Giro d'Italia challenge
- Dutch riders to sacrifice Tour de France ambitions in favour of the Giro d'Italia
- How to turn Tom Dumoulin into a Grand Tour contender
- Dumoulin: I'm targeting a Grand Tour in 2017
- Dumoulin: If you are not willing to lose, then you can't win
- Dumoulin reflects on brutal defeat in Vuelta a Espana
One of the tell-tale signs that Dumoulin's tenure in the red jersey at the 2015 Vuelta was wholly unexpected was his level of engagement each day in the race leader's press conference. Thousand-yard stares and banal answers are the norm, and Dumoulin's eye contact and lengthy responses were all the more striking given that his chief rival's public thoughts rarely extended beyond a variation on ‘We'll see.'
Montefalco
Dutch contenders
You can read more at Cyclingnews.com
via Cyclingnews Latest Interviews and Features http://ift.tt/2oS04mT
No comments:
Post a Comment