The Coffee Ride #152, with Reece Homfray
ORICA-Scott has started contract talks with Simon Gerrans who is keen to continue his professional career into a 15th season in 2018. Read more in The Coffee Ride today.
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BANNAN: GERRO DESERVES ‘TIME AND DISCUSSION’
AUSTRALIAN cycling veteran Simon Gerrans has started contract talks with Orica-Scott amid plans to ride on into a 15th professional season next year.
The 37-year-old is keen to continue racing in 2018 but the team is yet to extend his contract which expires this year.
Orica-Scott general manager Shayne Bannan told News Corp that Gerrans has earnt the right to time and lengthy discussion before making any call on his future.
“We started the conversation about a month ago so we are still in discussions,” Bannan said.
“He’s got some pretty important races for the rest of the year, in particular he’s targeting the Canadian one-day racing.
“Simon has been such a valuable member of the team for six years and he carried the team, let’s face it, in the first year, so he deserves the respect of time and discussion.
“There are still a lot of riders without a contract at the moment, normally most contracts, the big ones anyway are done by now.”
Gerrans is one of Australia’s greatest ever cyclists who has won Milan-San Remo (2012), Liege-Bastogne-Liege (2014) and the Tour Down Under four times (2006, 2012, 2014, 2016).
He was second in both the road race at this year’s national championships and the Cadel Evans Great Ocean Road Race, but has not won a bike race since back-to-back stages of the TDU last year.
Gerrans was left out of Orica-Scott’s team for the Tour de France as it targeted the general classification with Simon Yates and Esteban Chaves and did not hide his disappointment, but said he understood why the decision had been made.
He returned to racing at Prueba Villafranca on July 25 and on the weekend rode Clasica San Sebastian.
The Victorian is now gearing up for Grand Prix Quebec and Montreal in Canada in September.
Orica-Scott has been busy in the transfer market this season and is reportedly set to sign Italian Matteo Trentin and Spaniard Mikel Nieve who was part of Team Sky’s Tour de France winning team with Chris Froome.
MEYER TO RACE WITH MITCHELTON-SCOTT
AS WE revealed last week, Orica-Scott is in talks with Cameron Meyer who is poised to return to the WorldTour team on a three-year deal next season.
But sooner than that, Meyer may race for its continental team, Mitchelton-Scott in the second half of this season.
His last road race was the UCI 1.2 ranked Dwars door de Vlaamse Ardennen, over 200km in Belgium, which he won.
Meyer is an eight-time track world champion and 2011 Tour Down Under champion who had offers from up to six WorldTour teams for next year but is believed to have agreed on joining Orica-Scott.
WARD MAKES SUCCESSFUL RETURN
EMERGING young sprinter Caitlin Ward made a successful return from a long-term foot injury at the ITS Melbourne last week.
The 23-year-old had her first race since injuring her foot last December and posted a sprint qualifying time of 11.1secs which national coach Nick Flyger described as a success.
“It was her first hit-out since her injury back in December and she posted a pretty good time there, I’m glad to see her progressing again,” Flyger said.
“It’s one of those things, some injuries you can train and race through and some take their time to come right and she’s done well to knuckle down, do what the doctors and physios said and she’s reaping the rewards.”
What a wk 2 make a come back! thank you 2 the amazing people who got me back kicking goals & chasing dreams; u're the best 😘 #ITSMelbourne pic.twitter.com/cpeoGEsQfl
— Caitlin Ward (@CaitlinWard37) July 30, 2017
Overall Flyger said he was very pleased with how his sprinters performed throughout the five days of racing.
“I was rapt, we’d tried some things going into Hong Kong (world championships) so took the best of that and what we did before Rio and are slowly adding the pieces together,” he said.
“I thought our team did really well, particularly Steph (Morton), some of the times she rode were world class which is brilliant for this time of year, and there’s some depth through our pathways.”
The Aussie sprinters are now back training in Adelaide and plan to hold a two-week camp in Brisbane at the end of the month where they will train on the track to be used for next year’s Commonwealth Games.
HAMILTON’S STAR STILL RISING
STILL on Mitchelton-Scott, young gun Lucas Hamilton continued his amazing season on the weekend by winning the Tour of Alsace.
The six-day French stage race has been won by the likes of Thibaut Pinot (2011) and Wilco Kelderman (2012) and is a proven breeding ground for future stars.
There is little doubt about Hamilton’s potential and now he’s taking aim at the Tour de l’Avenir starting on August 18.
“You dream about this kind of situation,” the team’s sports director James Victor said.
“And having a team strong enough and capable enough of pulling it off and the result is a real testament to the hard work the boys have been putting in.
“Lucas wasn’t even supposed to be doing this race after crashing out of Aosta, but he asked to come in to get more race days and he really performed well.”
QUOTES OF THE WEEK ...
I’m so happy to have been able to pull off the win, I’ve had a lot of second places this year so to be able to finish it off and climb on to the top step of the podium is wonderful.
- Lucas Hamilton after winning the Tour of Alsace.
Up on the Gold Coast is where I want to be, I would love to get my first Commonwealth Games start so hopefully I can impress over the summer.
- Australian sprinter Pat Constable at last week’s ITS Melbourne.
I tried to make it look like I was OK when in fact the truth is that I was really terrible on the last kilometres of the Peyresourde.
- Chris Froome tells The Sunday Times about his poker face during the Tour de France.
Originally published as The Coffee Ride #152, with Reece Homfray
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