Reus starts in Australia

Kai Reus of Team Rabobank is ready to restart his cycling career at the age of 23. The Dutchman is ready to rejoin the ProTour team and face the top races after recovering from a serious accident in July 2006.

Reus suffered head injuries in a training crash in July 2006. Doctors subsequently placed him in an induced coma for 12 days.

Last season, Reus rode for the Dutch Rabobank Continental team and joined the ProTour team for the Tour of Missouri.

"I had trained very little in the build up, but I could ride along very well," he said to rabosport.nl. He then rode the Tour du Poitou-Charentes "where things went better. Afterwards, I spoke with team management and we agreed that I would take the step up to the pros" in 2009.

Reus will open his season directly with the first ProTour race, the Tour Down Under. It seems early, he acknowledged, but it will allow everyone involved to see right off where he stands. He knows that there is still a long way to go, and despite his impatience to jump right back in, he and the team are willing to examine things from month to month.

The Tour Down Under will also let him race against another rider making a comeback, Lance Armstrong. Reus called it "a funny coincidence. I can at least say that I have ridden with him in the peloton. I don't think there will be many more chances."

Reus isn't sure of his racing programme for the nest season. He will not race the Giro d'Italia or the Tour de France, but believes there is a chance to race the Vuelta a España, depending on how his season develops.

"I find it all very exciting," he said of 2009. "I am really intensely looking forward to it." (SW)