Clemens Fankheuser will be back on Irish shores next month for the An Post Rás - as will a host of other seriously good riders. The Join-S De Rijke squad from the Netherlands are bringing a line-up they feel can challenge for stages and the overall.
By Brian Canty
The winner of the 2014 edition of the An Post Rás, Clemens Fankhauser, is to return to the race in Ireland next month, aiming to become part of a select group of riders who have won it twice.
The talented 30-year-old will spearhead a formidable Austria Cycling Tirol squad looking for an unprecedented three in-a-row after fellow countryman Lukas Postlberger won last year.
Fankhauser is coming into some good form at the moment and most recently, was fifth in the 1.2-ranked GP Adria Mobil (1.2) in Slovakia.
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More impressively, he was 12th overall in Coppi E Bartali (2.1), a race that had the likes of Team Sky and Topsport Vlaanderen-Baloise in it.
The final team line-up will be confirmed in due course but three of the four who will start alongside him include Martin Weiss, Patrick Bosman and former European junior road race champion Alexander Wachter.
Weiss and Bosman both have class to burn, the former a stage winner in the Giro del Friuli (2014) while Bosman took third in a stage of the Giro Valle d’Aosta in the same year.
There’s also a Dutch team after confirming their entry for the race, with former WorldTour rider Jetse Bol amongst their five-man line-up.
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Wouter Mol riding for the Vaconsoleil-DCM in previous years. The Dutchman is a very strong rider with an impressive palmarés and should go well in Ireland next month.
The Join-S De Rijke squad will be led by 33-year old Wouter Mol, above, who previously rode for Vaconsoleil-DCM between 2009 and 2013.
His biggest win was the 2010 Tour of Qatar but he’s still very much to the fore at Continental level where he resides now.
In the recent Tour of Normandie he posted some strong results, though 18th overall probably didn’t do justice to how well he rode there.
Bol is still only 26 years but has been a pro for most of his life, first with Rabobank and later with Belkin.
He’s a three-time winner of the Olympias Tour and he also went well in Normandie of late.
The team will be completed by Ike Groen joined by Robbert de Greef and Jordi Sloof.
“Our goal is to be present and aggressive in the final of each stage and see if we can get someone on the podium of the general classification,” said team manager Frank Kwanten.
“For all five riders the month of May marks a peak in their season. This means they need to be at their best level,” he added.
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