With two victories and numerous other top results, Matthias Brändle (IAM) showed his class in 2015. Nonetheless, the balance was not 100% positive. ”It was a good season. But I cannot be completely happy because I wanted to be closer to the top of the radsport-news ranking,” he told radsport-news.com with a smile.

Brändle got off to a great start as he was sixth in the time trial at the Tour of Qatar (2.HC) and won the last stage of the Tour of Oman (2.HC) from a breakaway. In the following stage races like Tirreno-Adriatico and the Tour de Romandie, the time trial specialist delivered top 10 results in his favourite discipline. “Especially in the prologues and short time trials, I was almost always in the top five. Only the very great victory was missing,” Brändle said about his performances in the race against the clock.

But in the prologue at the Tour of Belgium (2.HC), no one was faster than Brändle who then also defended the red leader’s jersey for three days. That made it even more frustrating that the IAM rider had to abandon 35km from the finish of the final stage due to food poisoning. "That did hurt me just because the team had supported me perfectly in the previous stages," said Brändle who continued on the good path.

At the Tour de Suisse, he was third in the prologue and he was a fine seventh in the opening time trial of the Tour de France. From there, things did not go as planned though.

"My first participation was certainly a highlight, but also a bit of a disappointment," said Brändle. "I could not show what I normally can. The temperatures of nearly 40 degrees made me crack completely and did not allow me to attack in my usual way," he said. Nonetheless, Brändle fought his way to the finish and reached Paris in 156th place.

For the coming season, his fourth in the IAM jersey, Brändle has big plans."I want to improve in all areas and win the races where I previously narrowly missed out," he announced.