On his way back to succes?

As a sprinter Tyler Farrar has won some of the most important victories in cycling. He has won several stages in the three Grand Tours, and has victories in both minor classics and stage races. In 2010 and 2011 he was counted amongst the very best sprinters in cycling, and was one of the few to be able to challenge fast stars Cavendish and Greipel. Since 2012 and 2013 though, he has had a hard time doing what a sprinter does best, namely winning…

Now Farrar reveals to Cyclingnews that he is planning to start his season during Argentina’s San Luis, and that he hopes he can change his winning cycle around.

"I've actually never even been to South America, so it will be a little bit of an adventure. I've done the Tour Down Under a few times, so plenty of years I've started my season this early, but never in San Luis. So I'm really looking forward to it," Farrar said.

"I know there are a few flat days," Farrar said. "So there should hopefully be a few opportunities and some good southern hemisphere weather to start the year off."

Farrar lives in Ghent, Belgium, and is extremely popular in cycling crazed Flanders, very likely due to his fluency in Dutch. In fact he was in 2012 made an honorary citizen in Ghent, Still, he has lacked recent success, and attributes it to crashes and injuries.

"I crashed so much and spent almost that entire season either injured or coming back from injury," he said. "It took me a good chunk of 2013 to really find my feet again."

"Toward the end of the year things really started to click and come good," he added to Cyclingnews.

"But 2013 did not have the results I'd hoped for the season as a whole. As a sprinter, wins are what counts, so it wasn't very satisfying. If you win two races and have seven second places, it kind of feels like you're banging your head against a wall sometimes."

While next season is about changing his lacks of wins around Tyler Farrar admits that he would love participating in the Tour de France, and be able to contest the flat stages against the best sprinters in the world.

"Knowing in advance means it is the way it is," he said of the possibility he could miss the Tour again. "There are plenty of good races on the calendar, plenty of other good races to target. I guess I am riding the Giro. But like I said, we'll see. I would love to ride the Tour, so if I can show in the first part of the year that I'm back to my best, then I would hope I would get to go."

Hopefully Farrar will manage to bounce back, and compete in the sprints of 2014. Still, it will not be easy. Numerous sprinters have appeared recently. Just consider the success of Frenchmen Nacer Bouhanni, Samuel Dumoulin and Bryan Coquard, Germans John Degenkolb, André Greipel and Marcel Kittel, Slovak Peter Sagan, and of course Britain’s Mark Cavendish.

Still, when he is at his best Tyler Farrar has one of the fastest top speeds around, and could challenge even the best in a pancake flat finish. He does seem to have become worse at positioning, and his lack of wins could simply be attributed to that. But who knows.

Perhaps all he really needs is a bit of luck.