By Guy Hand
October 12th 2008 @ 12:04am
World’s best team says you’ve got to get Bak
The world’s No.1 cycling team believes Denmark’s Lars Bak rather than its three Australians will be the man to beat when the Herald-Sun Tour kicks off in eastern Victoria tomorrow.
Much of the hype surrounding the Tour de France-winning CSC Saxo Bank is centring around Australian Olympic heroes Stuart O’Grady and Brad McGee and young Aussie Matt Goss.
But O’Grady and McGee have suggested Dane Lars Bak, rated a gun in time trials, is the team’s not-so-secret weapon for the seven-day event.
Bak was second in the recent Tour of Poland, and he and O’Grady were part of the team which helped Carlos Sastre win the Tour De France three months ago.
“He was - we were hoping - going to be our secret weapon,” joked O’Grady of the 28-year-old Dane when his name was mentioned prominently at the launch of the event.
“He’s been riding great. But the whole team’s on a high and it has been since the Tour de France win.”
But O’Grady, 35, does concede he has a much better chance of making an impression on the Herald-Sun Tour than last year.
In 2007, he was riding in his first event since a terrible Tour de France crash.
This year, he is far more confident of a good ride.
“It’s a massive difference to how I came here last year,” O’Grady said.
“It was just a stepping stone for me.
“What a difference 12 months has made. Rocking up being a part of the Tour de France winning team has certainly given me a good base and my form should be 100 times better.”
Teammate McGee, 32, will retire from competitive cycling after the Herald Sun Tour, giving the team another motivation to win.
But last year’s winner Matt Wilson and another Aussie, Baden Cooke, are among the front-runners to shake CSC Saxo Bank’s apparent hold on the race.
Wilson has been nursing a knee injury but is confident he will be on the starting line for tomorrow’s 44.1km criterium around Traralgon.
The tour will mainly be run through eastern Victoria, and finishes with a criterium in Melbourne’s “Little Italy”, Carlton, next Saturday.
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