Joaquim Rodríguez missed out on attending the 100th Tour de France presentation this week after suffering from tonsillitis. The Katusha rider started to feel sick at the airport while preparing to take off to Paris. As luck would have it his flight had mechanical problems and he could not find another flight that would get him to the presentation on time. The Spaniard instead opted to head home.
"On the way home I really started feeling ill. I felt like something was wrong and I had a fever that was rising", Rodríguez said.
Upon seeing the details of the Tour de France route, the Catalan is as yet undecided about taking part. He says he will now wait for the route unveiling of the Vuelta a España then sit down with team management and decide to either target the Giro d’Italia like this year or head to the Tour.
"Now that we know the route for the Giro and the Tour, I'll wait to see the Vuelta and then decide with the technical team to see which of these we will do.”
This year Rodríguez enjoyed his best season to date, with ten victories. He finished on both the podiums of the Giro and Vuelta and won the UCI WorldTour. There was talk that he wanted out of his contract from 2013 as he felt that he was not sufficiently valued financially, but the Katusha management would have none of it.
However it did not renew the contract of Hans Michael Holczer, the general manager that Rodriguez has said was partially responsible for his dissatisfaction over the pay issue. It is not known if his salary has increased since Holczer’s departure.