In the 2012 Tour de France, there was a huge crash into Metz on stage six. Wout Poels, then riding for Vaconsoleil, suffered a ruptured spleen and kidney, as well as several broken bones, keeping him off the bike for five months. Heading into 2015, the Dutchman is looking to be a part of Team Sky’s Tour line up.
“It was quite difficult to come back,” he says in an interview with Sky Sports News. “In the beginning, when I was in the Netherlands in hospital, they told me that maybe it was better to stop cycling. I was a little bit in panic because I thought, ‘That’s my whole life. Cycling is my life and I don’t want to stop’
“I was a little bit lucky with a bad crash that I can still ride a bike at a high level. Two years ago I didn’t expect it was possible to get that level again.”
But come back he did, first with Vaconsoleil and then Omega Pharma-Quick Step, with whom he won his first WorldTou race last season, taking a superb stage of the Tour of the Basque Country. He spoke about his role at Team Sky and his desire to make it back to the Tour de France, where he has unfinished business.
“My role is going to be in the high mountains to support Froome,” he says at Team Sky’s winter training camp in Mallorca. “I think I can do it, like last year in the Giro, I did it with Rigoberto Uran.”
“My goal is to go to the Tour de France and support the team over there. It is a big challenge for me because we have a lot of good riders, but I think if I have good shape, I can be a part of that.”
But he isn’t just at Sky to help Froome, he wants to lead the team at some races, and he is training to ensure that when he gets his chance, he has the shape to take it.
“I hope I can be in some races the leader, but we have to look which programme I am going to ride,” he says. “If I ride more with Froome, he is, of course, the leader and you have to support him."
“But there are other races where maybe he isn’t [present] where maybe I can do my own thing.”
30.03: The Bueng Si Fai |
30.03: Gran Premio Miguel Indurain |
30.03: Volta Limburg Classic |
31.03: Ronde van Vlaanderen |
31.03: Ronde van Vlaanderen |
29.03 - 01.04: Ster van Zuid Limburg |
01.04: Gran Premio del Perdono |
01.04: Ronde de Mouscron |
01.04: Giro del Belvedere |
02.04: G.P. Palio del Recioto |
Nathan WILSON 33 years | today |
Gerardo FERNANDEZ 47 years | today |
Ondrej ZELINKA 37 years | today |
Behzad KARAMZADEH 39 years | today |
Hibiki KOIZUMI 20 years | today |
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