Rabobank team leader Denis Menchov had a quiet enough prologue yesterday in the Criterium du Dauphiné, finishing 24 seconds behind the winner Alberto Contador (Astana) in placing 35th.
The Russian has had a complicated spring; he got his season off to a very strong start with second in the Vuelta a Murcia in early March, dropped out of the Volta a Catalunya due to allergies, was ninth in the Vuelta a Castilla y León and third overall in the Tour de Romandie, but then came down with a bout of bronchitis.
This affected his plans with regards to his buildup for the Dauphiné. Altitude training sessions were curtailed due to the illness, and he dropped out of the Tour of Belgium thirty kilometres into stage one as he felt off-form and was isolated when the peloton split.
With all that in mind, directeur sportif Frans Massen is satisfied with the prologue showing. “Denis was there, showing he is strong,” he said afterwards. “He just lacks a little rhythm and form. But that will come.
“He feels good and sees things as going well. The road to the Tour has of course not gone flawlessly, but after his retirement in Belgium, Denis been busy. He has trained hard and well and that we can already see.”
Contador said before the 6.8 kilometre prologue that he didn’t expect to win, but things turned out better than he had envisioned. He set a time of eight minutes 34 seconds over the hilly course, beating Tejay Van Garderen (HTC Columbia) by two seconds and Janez Brajkovic (RadioShack) by five. Paul Maertens was best of the Rabobank riders in ninth place, and this was something which pleased Massen.
“We had hoped for a man in the top ten and expected Maarten or maybe even Denis, but actually we also knew that Paul could possibly do well,” he said. “He made a strong impression, especially uphill.”
The ProTour race continues today with a lumpy 191 kilometre race from Evian-les-Bains to Saint-Laurent-du-Pont. It becomes more mountainous later in the week, and will have a first-ever visit to Alpe d’Huez next Saturday.
Contador has made it clear that he doesn’t think he will win overall; he is still a little way off his top form, and doesn’t want to go too deep and thus affect his Tour de France chances. Menchov is also likely to take a cautious approach, although he will have to push himself at times in order to catch up with Tour rivals who haven’t had as many interruptions.
Massen also has July in mind as the priority. He’d undoubtedly like to see the riders perform well, but doesn’t appear to be fixated on this being the case.
"We are going this week open-minded and will see what we can do,” he said. “For Denis Menchov, this is a big, serious test and a heavy preparation race for the Tour. We can’t say yet to what extent he can take a high position in the general classification. We will see. It is after all a very hard week. For the Tour riders Denis, Maarten [Tjallingii] and Koos [Moerenhout], it will be a good foundation in the run up to the Tour.”
Menchov’s best Tour de France performance to date came in 2008 when he was fourth overall. Third-placed finisher Bernhard Kohl (Gerolsteiner) was subsequently disqualified for doping. The Russian has won three Grand Tours, taking two editions of the Vuelta a España and winning the Centenary Giro last year.
He was dominant in the Italian race but off form in the Tour, with many considering that he did not recover sufficiently. Because of that, he choose to miss the event this year.