Robbie McEwen: life of a sprinter

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Already a Tour stage winner.(Image credit: AFP)

An interview with Robbie McEwen, July 5, 2006, part 2

RMcE: I know what I have. I have pure speed over a short distance and, providing I am going well, if I can time it right and come from the right place, I can beat anyone. But if you compare me to Boonen or Petacchi, I can't sprint as fast for as long as they can, but I can maybe reach a higher peak speed for a short distance. I am an explosive sort of sprinter; they are more guys who wind it up and keep winding it and keep pounding all the way. Boonen will pound at all the way to the line and doesn't normally blow. Petacchi will take off and pretty much accelerate right all the way through the finish line.

RMcE: Pretty much. Each time I have beaten those guys, it is pretty much the scenario that I will wait until they start their sprint and then try to accelerate out of the wheel. But I think I am also known for doing different things; like, if there are five sprints, I will maybe do three different things, just depending on what is happening around me because I might ride my sprint according to what either Alessandro or what Tom is doing, or somebody else who has a strong lead out train. If something else is going and I think that looks better, then I will change my tactic. I will do something different because I don't want to do the same thing every time…because when you're predictable, you're beatable.

RMcE: I have never actually said that, people have said that for me (laughs). "He doesn't like a train." It would be great, but in our situation now with Cadel, we have what I wouldn't call a split team, but we have team that is built for two fronts. Our team is a luxury position with me, because I don't necessarily need a whole team built around me to be able to win the sprint. For me, it is an advantage not having to have one, but it is a disadvantage because I don't get one because they think I don't need one! So it is like a vicious circle. Maybe I am my own worst enemy, because I don't have a train and then I win… then they say, "he doesn't want one, he doesn't need one."

People often think that I'm there just am my own, but I use my team-mates in a different way. I will firstly get some of my team-mates to chase breaks, make sure firstly that we have a sprint - that is the most important thing. You can see in the last couple of years that we have taken a lot of responsibility in chasing breaks, doing more than our fair share of the work, which is more than can be said for some other teams. And then I use my other guys to place me where I need to be, so I just talk to them constantly, tell them what my tactic is and what I want to do. Then they put me where I need to be.

RMcE: I honestly haven't looked at it yet. I am going to look at it when I get home from here. I know basically where it goes, it starts in Strasbourg, then we had looked through Luxembourg, Valkenburg and Belgium, down to near Paris, out to the coast, down to the Pyrenees, up the climbs, and then it is suffering-time until we eventually reach Paris. I know where it sort of goes, but I couldn't say which stage the first time trial is, I don't know what day the first mountain stages, I don't know if there are stages between the mountains… it could be a sprint, I don't know.

RMcE: I knew it, basically from the day I lost those points. I think without getting tangled up, I would have finished second on that day and it was 30 points. If you lose 30 points you can forget it. You might still finished second or third, but you're not going to win it anymore. That is, the green jersey competition has been closer and closer [for] the last few years. Since 2001, I think, it has been very, very close right up until the last day.

RMcE: It depends on how you feel. Hushovd started going for them from day one last year. I sort of did that in 2003, but actually that year in the Tour I just wasn't going all that great. I was all right, but not really good. I had also been going for those sprints and it can sap your energy a bit, if you are busy with those from the first day. There are three a day in the first week, so if you are trying to do those and then do the finish it is likely to take a bit of the edge off. I normally choose not to do them and just try to win stages. I want to be able to come away from the Tour and at least once, gone across the finish line with my arms in the air, rather than get to the end of it and maybe or maybe not have a jersey, but not actually won anything.

RMcE: Well, in the Tour stages that I have won, there aren't many where I have just come in the last couple of metres. I mean, I beat Boonen last year in the last 100 metres of stage five. I hit out from 200 [metres to go] in Karlsruhe on stage seven, and I passed my own team-mate Rodriguez with 100 metres to go in Montpellier, when he did an awesome lead out. It is not often when I just come in the last few metres.

RMcE: He is somebody who is always in position. He always puts himself in a position where if he had the legs, he could win. He has still got that sense of positioning and the experience, so even if he is not quite as fast as he was a few years ago, he still does everything else just as well as he used to. And that makes him dangerous. The worst thing you can do is underestimate somebody. That is something I try not to do.

RMcE: Well, looking forward to the Tour is maybe not the right way to put it. It is not the most fun race, because there is pressure, it is just really busy and you haven't got a second to yourself. From the moment you wake up in the morning until the time you go to bed, it just seems that you are constantly just flat-out, busy. You feel pressure and there is expectation from the team, but mostly just from yourself. That is what I have… I am going there having trained hard and suffered in the Tour of Switzerland to be good at the Tour, and so I will be wanting to win a stage and nothing less. If I come away with less than a stage win, I will be disappointed. That is normal. So you do put pressure on yourself

RMcE: I am tipping Ullrich. I have been saying that since the Tour of Romandie. That is the first time anybody saw him, that was his first race this season. He was in the gruppetto with me but I was looking at his heart rate monitor and the gear he was riding compared to the hill we were on. It was only the end of April and I know how good he gets and how quick he builds form… he wasn't going above 160 bpm and he was riding the big ring up this climb. I was panting like mad, but he was fairly comfortable. He was still a few kilos overweight and it was his first race, so that was something.

RMcE: Well, I didn't [see] anything of him in the mountains, of course (laughs), I am not there long enough in the bunch, but I have seen enough and heard enough from a few others to know that he is going really well and is only going to keep getting better. So he is my tip for the Tour. I think that even if Basso manages to drop him, he is going to be able to limit his losses and I think is going to be incredible in the time trials. This year there is a lot of time trials…I have been told there are two and they are flattish, a bit up and down. There is no Alpe d'Huez time trial and there is no team time trial, but there are two long individuals. So that is in Ullrich's favour. Especially if you look at the last time trial last year, he took a minute and a half out of Basso. I think it will be good battle, normally it should be between those two. But you could also have somebody else who pops up, that can always happen.