Does the Dutchman have what it takes?

Robert Gesink’s 2013 was good, but still far from superb, and the Dutchman still fights to prove the qualities that once made the media hail him as one of cycling’s most promising talents. Nonetheless, the last years has seen a steady progress from Gesink, and many forgets that he is still only 27-years-old. He may just have a successful Grand Tour in him, and why not in 2014?

In an interview to Cyclingnews, he revealed part of next season’s schedule:

"I want to do the Tour of California and I'll try and be really good there. Then I'll stay there and train. Hopefully I'll win California but that's not an easy thing. It's not like I win 25 races a year and can just pick but I'll give it my best. I don't know how but I seem to do better on the other side of the ocean than here," Gesink said.

"But next year is a new challenge with new hopes and new goals and again I'd like to go for GC in the Tour de France."

Gesink’s best result in the French GT was fifth overall in 2010, and he has arguably been Holland’s best stage rider since 2008 (where he placed seventh in the Vuelta). One of his main strengths has been his competitiveness in the time trials, his durability in the mountains, and his somewhat surprising punchiness. The ladder has also provided him with a number of good results in classics; especially in Canada, where he has won both the GP Montréal (2010) and the GP Québec (2013).

"If you look at the results, I've done things that people from Holland haven't done in the last thirty years. It's sport and at the highest level sometimes it works out how you want and sometimes it doesn't. That's just the way it is," he says.

In the interview Gesink acknowledged that his career has been marred with crashes, injuries, and illness, and he partly subscribes his lack of results to his ill fortune. Still, he does not want to be known as a bad bike handler.

"I went with high expectations to the Giro (2013) and was in good shape after ten days. Then I got sick and it didn't work out as planned. From there it was hard to be on the highest level again at the Tour so I had a different role there. It was good to do that but it's not something I want to do too much in the future because I'm still only 27 and I think there are more possibilities for myself in the future," he told Cyclingnews.

"Of course I had an accident and broke my leg in training but I've also won a lot of nice races. If I was a bad bike handler then it would be different but that's not the case. That's how it works sometimes, it's easy to understand someone if you put a label on them. If you get a few articles like that then you're pushed into a corner a bit but I think I've changed. I can remember Wiggins crashed out of the Tour in 2011 but I don't think people remember him as a guy who always crashed. Now they remember him as the guy who won a Tour and then he was the guy who couldn't even go through a corner.”

"The last part of the season was perfect. I won in Quebec and was really strong in Montreal but maybe I just wanted it too much and wasn't that clever. Then in Lombardia I was top ten and the same in Beijing."

Now, Gesink is looking forward to his return to the Tour de France, where he will be co-leader with Bauke Mollema.

"It's the biggest race in cycling so I'll be there again to try and be there with the favourites."

"Bauke is now, as we've seen in the last few years, really improving. We're the same age but we've not ridden together too much in the last few years. We will be riding together more next year but I think it will work out."

"We're not the same as he's more to himself and I'm more talkative perhaps. When I think of something I'll say it and he's a bit different to that but I think we can work together. It's a good thing we're both there because in the Tour there are a lot of moments when you need good luck so it's probably better to go with two guys for GC. You never know what will happen in the first week, especially with the cobbles that will be in the first week."

"There's now a lot of those little guys, the Colombians riding uphill but I've become more mature as a rider. It's not like I can attack like the guys who are ten or twenty kilos lighter than me. But there are the cobbles and as we saw in the cross winds this year there are big differences and that's where you can decide the GC. That's why it's good to be on this team where we can work towards those stages."

"I'm not the guy who is that confident and will shout about what he's going to do. I never really feel like being that guy because I know that there's a lot of things that can happen. I know I can do top ten and maybe more is possible. That's the same for Bauke."

"There's a lot of respect for each other and we've helped each other before. We're both professional and honest and we've got a really strong support team behind us."

Hopefully Gesink will show his best during the Tour, because he can indeed add to the firework display.