Sastre approaching Tour form

Out of all the riders at Team CSC, just one has all three grand tours on his program: Carlos Sastre. The Spaniard has already done well at the Giro d'Italia and is getting ready for Tour de France at the moment, while he will be finishing off with Vuelta a España in September. But throughout the season, the Tour de France has been the most important race for Sastre, even though he still did really well in helping Ivan Basso achieve his victory in the Giro this spring.

"I'm quite pleased with my efforts," said Sastre. "To me it was just preparation for the Tour. I knew I wouldn't be able to help Basso a hundred percent, but I ended up doing some good work for him in some of the stages." The 30 year-old hasn't been racing since the Giro, but he has not been taking it easy.

"I can feel that I'm getting very close to my Tour form," he continued. "It feels better and better when I train, so it looks like perfect timing for me."

Although he is focusing one hundred percent on helping Basso at the Tour de France, Sastre also has a very exciting Vuelta a España ahead of him later this season. Last year, he was second in this race.

"We'll deal with the Vuelta nearer the time," Sastre added. "Inigo Cuesta didn't get selected for the Tour squad, so he's relaxing a bit over the next couple of weeks, but will start preparing after that, and then we'll have to help each other as much as we can. Whether it will be me or Cuesta, who will end up captain at the end, we'll have to wait and see, because he's a strong guy as well."

So far this season Sastre has had one victory, when he won Klasika Primavera, and hopefully he will add to his list later in the year.