The news that the former triple world individual time trial champion had chosen to replace Team Sky with the Danish team hit the media at the beginning of December thus securing the Danish team owner one of last season’s strongest riders.

 

Rogers finished the 2012 season as no. 17 in the official UCI rankings thanks in no small part to a series of impressive results obtained in the stage races and the major role he played in helping Bradley Wiggins clinch the Tour de France. These qualities, both parties emphasized at the announcement of the signing, are mutually beneficial as they mark the area where 33-year-old Roger’s personal interests are compatible with those of his team.
 

CyclingQuotes.com/Feltet.dk met the Australian time trialist with the exceptional climbing skills at Canary Islands where his team were preparing for the new season at the end of January to learn the rationale behind the unexpected change of teams. The explanation, as it turns out, is actually quite simple.

Better opportunities

Rogers appears relaxed and at ease as he explains that “is was quite a long negotiation, really. I was negotiating with many teams since my contract with Team Sky was terminating, contrary to what a lot of people thought. They thought I had another year,” Rogers explains CyclingQuotes.com on the hotel terrace.

”Team Saxo-Tinkoff offered me the best, for my characteristics – shorter stage rages, one week, and then obviously playing the domestique role in the Tour. So it was the alround balance for me.”
 

“With Team Sky they really wanted to concentrate more on the major stage races, and they have some really strong guys for that. And I felt more room here [at Team Saxo-Tinkoff],” he adds and is careful to cite his stay with Team Sky as an instructive learning experience.

“It’s a fantastic team, you know. I’m in the last years of my career – I have to take the best offers when they come,” he says.

At Team Sky Rogers was an integral part of the determined and successful strategy applied by the British team. With the Tour de France as the ultimate goal of the season, a core group of riders starring Bradley Wiggins prepared and planned the season together, trained in unison and rode the same races.

Lack of space at Team Sky

To the Australian two things were evident during his stay at Sky. He could still compete with the elite in the biggest of the minor stage races, but when it came to the bigger races his personal ambitions were curtailed due to the strict pecking order and predefined focus on Team Sky.

To the extent that he obtained personal results, these were reaped because of him being part of a much grander scheme rather than his personal abilities as a rider.

“Last year I was really competitive in the shorter stage races. For instance I won in Bayern and was second in Dauphine, playing the domestique role to Bradley. I really think that I can perform well in those kind of stage races. It was hard when you had the quality of riders like Bradley Wiggins and Chris Froome in the team,” Rogers explains while adding that he has regained his former strength in the ITTs since giving up his personal ambitions in the Grand Tours.

In the minor stage races the ITT plays a more significant role, allowing Rogers to be more successful in these races.

Planning ahead for the coming season Rogers has set his sights on Tirreno-Adriatico, Criterium International, the Tour of the Basque country and, most importantly, Critérium du Dauphiné. The latter, Rogers admits, is a race he particularly likes. Because he went through a minor operation in November of 2012 his expectations for the first races of this season are limited.

 

Positive impressions

Next week Rogers will be making his debut wearing the yellow-and-blue team jersey of Team Saxo-Tinkoff in the Tour Méditerranéen alongside other new signings Roman Kreuziger, Nicolas Roche and Oliver Zaug. Rogers enters the new season with two main objectives. Individual success in the races mentioned above, and a place on the team aiming for overall victory for Alberto Contador in the Tour de France.

Rogers is optimistic and more than willing to answer the questions of CyclingQuotes.com. In the wake of his operation Rogers felt wanting in terms of form at the first big gathering of the team earlier in November, but his spirits were raised by an open minded, sympathetic and harmonious Saxo-Tinkoff team and he doesn’t mind admitting to being somewhat surprised – in a positive manner.

“I came to the training camp [in November] in the last couple of days, and I found a group that was really open to me. I explained what I’d been through with the operation, and everyone showed great understanding. I suppose every team has it’s own characteristics, and I found this very relaxed, especially in the November Camp, knowing the fact that the January Camp would be a lot of hard work,” he explains and goes on to talk in more general terms.

“So we were able to build up a solid foundation as a team. Friendship to friendship, and nothing to do with the bike. I think it’s very important to have a base of relations, non-bike orientated, because it’s only when you find yourself on the bike, on the limit after 15 days of racing, where that stuff can make the difference. It’s more than friendship, it’s more than a job, I should say. You have to ride together as a team. It goes beyond work.”
 

Evidently his optimism also originates from the strength and depth of the team he has joined – a team strong enough to hold several trumps in the minor stage races while still being able to be triumphant in the main objective of the season, the Tour de France.
 

Adds crucial experience
“If you look at the riders that Bjarne has taken on, Kreuziger and Roche, I think he’s really balanced out the team for general classification. It’s quite obvious he really want’s to go for that. He’s got the guys for the mountains, he’s got the guys who can pull at the flats as well – and he’s got the experience. Not only with one or two riders experience – he has five or six guys,” says the Aussie.

With the experience of having ridden the Tour de France 9 times and a couple a Giro’s Rogers’ task will be to add crucial experience to the team. In all likelihood he is set to become Capitaine de Route in this year’s Tour de France. It is a role to which he will be excellently suited as he acted in the exact same capacity for Team Sky last year, to his great delight.

“I kind of like to get the team together – tell ‘you do this’, ‘you do that’. Make decisions when the team car isn’t there to make those decisions. They always need a pair of eyes on the road. I really like a successful team,” he says, adding that this role comes naturally to him. “I always look out to the team more than I do to myself.”

Thus, somewhat surprisingly, Rogers might actually benefit from the fact that he himself never had a team built around him when his personal ambitions in the GC were his primary concern since he now knows what it takes to aim high in the GC.

This knowhow, combined with experiences stretching back to the turn of the Millennium, will constitute an essential source of useful knowledge for Alberto Contador and the other members on Team Saxo-Tinkoff in the 2013 edition of the Tour de France.