"When I see how Egan Bernal and Chris Froome have come back, it's just a question mark" - Lidl-Trek DS admits concerns about Tao Geoghegan Hart's lengthy injury lay-off
Cycling
Lidl-Trek has gone big this transfer window, bringing in a number of new faces. Can such deals bring them to the level of Team Visma | Lease a Bike?
"Everyone looks at each other, but you are always bound by your own budget," Lidl-Trek sports director Steven de Jongh tells In de Leiderstrui, comparing his team to the all-conquering Visma. "We did very well in 2023, but of course we could not compete with such teams in terms of guidance and budget. We can now make some steps in terms of width and hopefully we can do that again next year, so that in five years we might be the team that people look up to."
So with Team Visma | Lease a Bike leading the way, just how do Lidl-Trek plan to even the odds? "It is very frustrating when you have to pin your own pins, like: here we are going to do it and here we are going to do it. And if one disappears..." says De Jongh. "With distribution you hope that you have the maximum effect and so we had a good year. We finished top five in the UCI ranking, which was the first time since 2017. We want to build on that."
One of Lidl-Trek's newest signings for 2024 is former Giro d'Italia winner, Tao Geoghegan Hart. "Ultimately you hope to achieve the highest possible result with such a rider, whether that is a top five or the podium," De Jongh says of the Brit, eyes firmly locked on the Tour de France. "In his first year with us, we give him full confidence and if he gets everything he can out of it and finishes eighth, then that is a very nice step after his injury. When I see how Bernal and Froome have come back, it's just a question mark. It was a serious injury, but he is getting the confidence and then we will see."
"But there has always been trust and there has been a lot of contact during that time. You take such a rider because you have a specific goal in mind. Then you won't immediately drop him after such an injury. In terms of personality, he fits our team very well and if he comes back well, we will have a very nice leader in Tao. He of course rode very well in the 2023 Giro, so who knows what was lost there with that crash. His program is set to be good in the Tour and hopefully it will work out the way it is going.”
It does go both ways; Froome did not recover, Remco recovered pretty good, Egan Bernal did not recover to top form and as the best example yet, Greg LeMond recovered from near death shotgun accident to winning the tour two years later... It can thus be everything, from bad accidents to accidents that don't matter, even if they are exactly the same. How someone recovers is dependand on the person and their will to survive the worst
By the time of the TDF it will be 1.2 years for Tao. He should be upto top form by then. Also the build up to the TDF will tell easily about his recovery. Top 10 GC in the 1 week races would be just about recovered.
Yeah froome and bernal haven't recovered they way they like but age plays a part as well (in froome's situation). Also how about Remco?? Had a year long injury and made his way back better than ever.
I'm not sure Froome and Bernal are instructive here. Froome was in his mid-30s and at at point in his career when performance was going to decline naturally, then suffered a truly traumatic injury. Bernal is much younger, but experienced an even more traumatic injury -- as in "life threatening" -- after a whole series of corrective surgeries and other accidents had already impacted him. Both are lucky to be alive, much less riding. Could be wrong, but it doesn't seem like Tao's situation is comparable. He is still in his prime physically and hasn't been injured as badly as Froome or Bernal, so hopefully for his sake it still possible to return to form.
If you only break bones or other less "endurance" depending injuries, not like muscle injuries or illness then you essentially do a lot of easy training (that's all that is possible) and easy training builds endurance. So you are getting fitter even during injury, and your body will also recover well then. Things like illness will set you back a lot more, this makes you not able to train at all. Endurance takes time to train unlike strength.
To see Geoghegan Hart surmounting Vingegard and Pogacar would be quite something..and refreshing, eg Dumoulin equalled Froome in la vuelta and the same could happen here too
That would make the tour de france s lot more fun, otherwise it is one and a half man show like lst year, pogcar was with Vingegaard everywhere but in the TT Pogi got CRUSHED!
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santiagobenites14-03-2025 - Well spotted :-)Mistermaumau14-03-2025
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KerisVroom14-03-2025 - Sad if confirmed but like Tadej, he’ll be happy it didn’t turn out to be a disaster. Curious to know how it happened uphill.Mistermaumau13-03-2025
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