By Graham Healy
(Photos: Jonathan Jono Devich)
Former Vuelta stage winner Philip Deignan has said he is delighted with his move to Unitedhealthcare, telling stickybottle while he felt strong last year he was restricted by team duties at Radioshack and so could not get results of his own.
The 28-year-old added that despite moving from the ProTour ranks to his new US-based Pro Continental team, he still has a very demanding programme with big European and American races where he wants to perform well.
He is looking forward to assuming the shared team leadership role at his new squad and getting longer recovery periods between races at different times of the coming season.
While his team kicks off its 2012 campaign at the Tour de San Luis in Argentina on Monday, Deignan will be pursuing a European programme at first.
“My season starts at the Tour of Algarve in mid-February, followed by the Tour of Murcia, Coppi-Bartoli, Giro del Trentino, Tour of Turkey and the Tour of California.”
“In the second half of the season, I’ve got the Tour de Beauce, Austria and Tour of Utah and hopefully the Olympics. I’ll have some good recovery periods between races, which I think will really help me.”
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Deignan has just completed his latest training camp with Unitedhealthcare in Palm Springs, California.
Underlining the importance to the team of some of the bigger US races, the riders took the opportunity to go on reconnaissance rides of one of the Tour of California stages to Big Bear Lake; some four months before the race.
Deignan said he is happy with his condition ahead of his season opener in the Algarve from February 15th to 19th.
“The winter has gone pretty smoothly; I had a good break after Lombardy with three or four weeks off. My only disruption over the winter was during the bad weather around Christmas when I had to use the turbo instead of going out on the road. I also got in some good miles with the Irish triathlon team in the Canaries.”
“With the new team, we had our first camp in the middle of November. But there was no intense training. It was more about meeting the rest of the team, planning for 2012 and testing our new bikes and equipment. The training camp last week went really well. The weather has been pretty mild and we’ve gotten some good miles in. We’ve also been doing some fast up-and-over sessions.”
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Deignan enjoyed a strong end to last season, riding very strongly in two Canadian races prior to taking second in a stage of the Tour of Beijing behind compatriot Nicolas Roche.
“I was really happy for (Roche); he was the strongest and deserved the win,” he said.
The Donegal man now hopes he can translate that good form into more results this season.
“I feel I rode strongly last season. But with Radioshack I was usually riding for somebody else and didn’t get many opportunities. It was great to work for the likes of Kloden and Leipheimer though, and I did learn a lot from them. I feel this will help me in a role as a team leader.”
Deignan will be sharing the team leadership duties in 2012. He says the position of leader will depend on who is strongest in particular races.
The team has been strengthened over the past few months with Jason McCartney also making the jump from Radioshack in addition to Marc de Maar joining from QuickStep and Jeff Louder from BMC. These new recruits will add a vast amount of experience to the team.
Unitedhealthcare has not applied for a wildcard invite for the Giro, as it clashes with the Tour of California.
Deignan is unsure whether the team will aim for a spot in the Vuelta. It’s a race that would undoubtedly suit him having won a stage there in 2009 and finished ninth on GC.
However, in the event of not getting a ride in a Grand Tour this year, Deignan has plenty of quality racing in his programme, not to mention the World Championships in Valkenburg which is on a hilly course that should suit him.
And finally, a bit about the bike….
Unitedhealthcare has switched bike supplier from Chris Boardman to Neil Pryde for the coming season, and Deignan is pleased with his new mount.
“It’s really good, and also for the first time I’ll have a time trial bike to train on at home which is great. We had some testing in the wind tunnel at Asheville back in November, and it went really well. The guys there wanted feedback from us as to how the bikes felt, and the technicians were able to make a few adjustments to my position, which results in an increased power output of 40W, which is significant.”
(Photo: Jonathan Jono Devich)
