Philip Deignan speaks to the media after placing third on the mountain stage at the Tour of California last month. He sounded full of plans for the second half of the season when we caught up with him ahead of the Tour de Beauce in Canada which starts today, Tuesday.
By Gerard Cromwell
As Dan Martin and Nicolas Roche fine tune their Tour de France preparations with the Tour de Suisse this week, an in-form Philip Deignan takes on the Tour de Beauce in Canada today.
Whilst recent seasons have been plagued by illness and injury, Deignan’s return to good health this year has coincided with a run of good form, culminating in a fine victory at the week-long Tour of the Gila and a solid ninth overall at the prestigious Tour of California last month.
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“I didn’t really know what to expect to be honest,” said Deignan of his Tour of the Gila win yesterday.
“It was the first time I’ve done one of those domestic US races. It wasn’t a WorldTour field obviously but there were guys like Janier Acevedo and Francesco Mancebo there, who showed again in California how strong they were, so it wasn’t an easy race.”
“You think you can be top five, or top three even, but then, to win, you need everything to work out perfectly as well. But I went into it in good form and knew I kind of had the chance to win, so it wasn’t a big surprise to be up there in the end."
What did surprise him however was the reaction he got from his fellow pros when he turned up for the Tour of California a week later.
“When we arrived at the race hotel in California pretty much all of the teams were staying there. We went down to dinner and all these riders were coming up to me, congratulating me on my win... big riders, big ProTour riders. I didn’t even think these guys would know about the race, never mind care so I was kind of surprised in that respect.”
Deignan almost claimed a stage victory on day two of California, dropping all of those big name riders on the ascent to Palm Springs before Acevedo and BMC’s American Tour de France hope Tejay Van Garderen passed him in the final metres.
The Donegal man hovered in third place overall for the first part of the week before some crosswind-induced splits in the peloton midweek saw him drift down the pecking order and eventually finish ninth overall.
“I was a bit disappointed with how the second half of the week went,” he admits.
“Obviously starting off with third overall I kind of thought I might hold the top three, or top five maybe. But it all started slipping away a bit. It could have been better, and I was pretty happy with it in the end. But those few days in the crosswinds where, as a team, we weren’t decisive, we didn’t act quickly enough, we weren’t organised ... we paid for that then.”
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“My time trial was a little bit below where I was hoping to be too. Still, to finish top ten in California was a good result. There were bits and pieces that weren’t perfect but, all in all, I was happy with it.”
Unlike some of his previous teams, Deignan has had the full support of his UnitedHealthcare squad through thick and thin and is happy that he is now able to repay that support with some good results.
“It’s nice to be able to repay the team for showing faith in me, being patient with me and letting me show what I can do when I’m healthy,” he says.
“Lots of teams I’ve been with in the past, you call them up and say ‘I’m not feeling good’ or ‘I’ve a problem’ or ‘I’m injured or sick’ and they’ll just tell you to go to the start and you’ll get better as the race goes on. Or else they’ll just give you some antibiotics and let you race anyway. UnitedHealthcare were pretty understanding last year when I had problems. They gave me time to get better and recover. The team have been really good and I'm very happy here.”
This year Deignan is back under the watchful eye of former FBD Rás winner and national road race champion Tommy Evans, now head coach at Triathlon Ireland. And it’s no coincidence that the last time the two worked together Deignan took the biggest victory of his career on stage 18 of the 2009 Vuelta a Espana.
“When myself and Tommy sat down we obviously had goals for the year and I’ve been pretty consistent so far, which is something I’ve really struggled with over the last couple of years,” says the affable Letterkenny pro.
“I’ve had some good months and some pretty bad months but this year I started well at the Tour de San Luis in January, progressed onto the Tour of Algarve and then progressed again at Coppi Bartali. I’m pretty happy with the way it’s gone.”
“I worked with Tommy in 2009 and then after that I was always working with team coaches. I don’t know if I could put it all down to that, there were plenty of other factors in there too. This is the first year we’ve worked together properly since 2009, but I think we’ll keep doing it next year.”
Deignan’s good form marks him out as one of the favourites for the overall classification in the Canadian tour, although a couple of easier training weeks at home mean he is unsure as to whether that tag is deserved.
“I feel like I haven’t trained enough almost, but I had a big workload in April and May, doing a solid six-week block where I had a lot of training and racing. The last few weeks there’s been a week off almost, and then the last two weeks have been pretty good training, not a huge amount of hours, but some good quality.”
“I’m going into the race feeling like I haven’t done enough but Tommy definitely understands how I work and we have a good relationship so maybe it’ll do me more good than I realise. I still have a lot I want to do this year with Beauce, the nationals the Tour of Colorado, Tour of Utah, Tour of Britain and the World Championships. There’s still a lot of racing left.”
National champion Matt Brammeier (Champion Systems) and Dubliners Anthony Walsh (Astellas Oncology) and Philip Lavery, who is guesting with H&R Block, also ride the Tour de Beauce this week.
