Bettini "dreams" of Flanders

As a part of the European peloton is currently participating in the Tour Down Under in Australia, World Champion Paolo Bettini is quietly preparing for the 2008 season at home in Italy. the Quickstep rider will begin his racing programme on February 9 in the G.P. Costa degli Etruschi before heading to the USA for the Tour of California. His first big goal this year will be the Ronde van Vlaanderen (Tour of Flanders) on Belgian soil on April 6 - a race the Olympic champion and Classics specialist hopes to add to his palmarès this season as 2008 could be Bettini's last year as a pro cyclist.

"I dream of Flanders, which I have never been able to win, even more so because this will be my last season in principle," Il Grillo told L'Equipe on Tuesday. "In 2004, I had announced that I would stop in 2008 - at the moment, I don't want to think of it, but I won't take this decision lightly. I wouldn't want to announce my retirement and come back on it later, that would be a sign of failure."

2008 being an Olympic year again, Bettini naturally thinks about defending his title but finds it hard to reconcile the event in an already-full race calendar. "The lead-up to the Games won't be easy to manage, even more so because I want to be on my best level of fitness for the Worlds, too," he explained. "How can I conciliate everything? In Beijing, there will be the smog, the heat, and it's a long travel, complicated by our previous engagements. Seven days before the Games, there's the Clasica San Sebastian, which is important to Quickstep. That will leave us very little time to get used to the Chinese climate."

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Speaking of the World Championships in Varese, Italy, Bettini feels up to the challenge of winning the event for the third consecutive time, a feat even the great Eddy Merckx did not accomplish. "Nobody ever did that, but nobody has been Olympic champion and double World champion at the same time, either," he smiled. "If I was able to defend my title in the hostile climate I was experiencing in Stuttgart, I should be able to achieve it in Italy."