Popovych focused on Tour, then contract
By Gregor Brown in Joigny Yaroslav Popovych is in his final year of his contract with Discovery...
By Gregor Brown in Joigny
Yaroslav Popovych is in his final year of his contract with Discovery Channel team, and after a difficult Giro d'Italia, he is ready to prove himself in the Tour in order to secure a new contract. The 27 year-old winner of the Tour's young rider competition in 2005 joined the American team to learn and work for Lance Armstrong, but now he is in a position to lead in his own right.
"I feel good, every day I feel better and better compared to the first days," he told Cyclingnews Wednesday morning in Villers-Cotterêts. "We will see how my legs go once we reach the mountains. After the Giro, with the crash, I did not race for about one mouth and for this reason it will be a little difficult in the first days but I hope to continue get better."
Tinkoff team owner, Oleg Tinkov, has indicated desires to work with the Ukrainian but 'Popo' played-down any such deal. "No, no. We have talked as friends but not on a basis of being a rider [for Tinkoff]."
Popovych indicated his unsatisfactory Giro delayed his negotiations, which are ongoing. "I am still talking," he said. "Before the Giro I was talking but then I did not do so well at the Giro and I stopped talking up to now. I hope for a good Tour to have a good contract. There is a ninety percent chance I will remain here with Discovery." The pressure will be on 'Popo' to perform when the Tour hits the big mountains of the Alps and Pyrénées.
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