Looking back, Óscar Freire regrets spending nine years at Rabobank: "I told my brother it was the last team I would want to go to"

Óscar Freire retrospectively regrets that he raced for Rabobank for nine consecutive seasons. This is what the Spanish former cyclist, who became world champion three times in his career, tells RIDE Magazine in recent interview.

Freire joined the Dutch team in 2003. "Rabobank had already asked my brother Antonio a year earlier if I was interested in joining the team," he tells RIDE. "Antonio was my agent. A Dutch team was certainly not what I was thinking of. In fact, I said that Rabobank was the last team I would want to go to. I was still young, but I had already become world champion twice. There was interest from many teams."

"It was difficult at first. We agreed that I could bring my own masseur Joseba from Spain. But Joseba had a completely different program than me in those first months," says Freire. "A lot of Dutch was spoken at the table. I was a bit of an outsider. This is also reflected in the results in that first year. The second year it went much better."

"It will not be a coincidence that I also won Milan-San Remo and the world championship. My contract was extended. And then a few more times. That ended up being nine seasons," he looks back. "If I'm honest and look back at my career, it was too long. I was always quite relaxed and after such a long time everything becomes normal. Changing teams had kept me on my toes. Then I would have had to prove myself again and I would certainly have felt more pressure. I needed that."