It was six in the morning when Christophe Sercu’s phone rang. “Walter?” the LottoAdecco manager wearily queried from his bed in Belgium to his director Sportif Walter Planckaert. “Morning. Robbie won today.”
The same phone call repeated itself two days later. And the day after. Oh, and two days after that. Robbie McEwen’s first week riding with his new team had yielded a quartet of victories at the 2002 Tour Down Under in just six stages. “Walter rang me every morning from Australia saying that he won again,” Sercu says. “Every time it was so very early. So early. But he was having an impact already.”
ACHIEVEMENTS
Career palmarès
12x – Tour de France stages
3x – Tour de France green jerseys
12x – Giro d’Italia stages
12x – Tour Down Under stages
5x – Paris-Bruxelles
3x – Australian road race champion
8x – Ronde van Nederland stages
7x – Tour de Suisse stages
Indeed. Before McEwen raced in the red of the Belgian team with his new team-mates, he had already won four times: twice at the Geelong Bay Crits and in becoming Australian national road and criterium champion. “I hadn’t lost in the Lotto jersey before I raced with my new team. I was in red hot form. I felt so incredible,” he recalls.
この記事は CYCLING WEEKLY の October 29, 2020 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、8,500 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です ? サインイン
この記事は CYCLING WEEKLY の October 29, 2020 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、8,500 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です? サインイン
Look KG 241
Handmade French carbon from the 1990s' biggest innovators
LET'S TALK ABOUT...DEPRESSION
Rates of depression have risen dramatically since the pandemic and cyclists aren't immune, as Chris Marshall-Bell finds out
TILTING AT TOWERS
Faced with a daunting weather forecast, Tom Davidson takes on Alice Towers’s favourite training loop and learns how block headwinds forge champions
RACE BIKE OF THE YEAR 2024
Cycling Weekly crowns its ultimate king of the road
THE HUB
All the news you might have missed from the last seven days
JACOB TIPPER - Are armchair experts any good?
In recent years, the world of professional cycling has seen the rise of a new type of enthusiast: the armchair cycling fan or Twitter expert.
Tour de Suisse - 9-16 June Switzerland
A year on from Gino Mäder’s tragic death at the race, the Tour de Suisse returns to the calendar with poignant tributes to the Swiss rider.
WorldTour stars find Unbound Gravel a struggle
Matej Mohorič might be the gravel world champion, but he was unable to complete gravel's biggest race last weekend
Tour of Britain Women - 6-9 June
After months of doubt over whether it would take place, the Tour of Britain Women gets underway in Welshpool, Powys, this afternoon.
Pidcock: all in on the Olympics
Tom Pidcock tells Tom Thewlis he is fully focused on gold in Paris this summer