By: Cathy Mehl

Team RadioShack has been racing for over a month and now enters into the heart of the European racing season.  It’s time to take a brief look back at where we’ve been and anticipate where we’re going.

The Team began their season in January at the Santos Tour Down Under with a strong squad that included Lance Armstrong, Yaroslav Popovych and Gert Steegmans.  Racing in front of huge crowds that cheered on the boys in red, white and grey, the team got their racing legs under them and logged in important racing miles at the start of the season.   While Lance was certainly the star of the show in South Australia, sprinting fast man Steegmans made sure to put himself in the midst of the action time and time again, working out a system with his teammates in order to eventually deliver him to the line with a winning time.  Lance also tested his legs a few times to see how his training was coming along, with the final analysis being that ‘All systems are go’ for the 2010 racing season.

The next race for Team RadioShack was the Volta ao Algarve with Levi Leipheimer opening his European cycling season.  Other teammates included Gert Steegmans, Sébastien Rosseler and Tomas Vaitkus.   Vaitkus suffered a crash in stage 1 that eventually led to his withdrawl from the race due to a shoulder injury.  Steegmans also crashed out on Stage 3 with a hard tumble onto his head. But Stage 4 brought the first Team RadioShack win with Rosseler breaking away solo with 28km to go and putting on an amazing display of power that bodes well for his cycling season.   Tiago Machado, Leipheimer and Andreas Klöden had good legs all week and ended up third, fourth and eighth on the final General Classification, earning the Teams Classification for Team RadioShack.  Machado also earned the pink jersey as the Best Portugese rider.  

After Algarve Team RadioShack went to the island of Sardinia to race in the Giro di Sardegna.  The team featured Jani Brajkovic and American Chris Horner opening up their accounts for the 2010 season.  Horner was particularly aggressive all week, ending up 2nd on the overall general classification, followed by Jani in 4th.  Our young Russian rider Ivan Rovny showed his talent in the sprints by mixing it up with the big guns, ending up 13th in his debut race for the Team.  More strong performances earned Team RadioShack their second win in the Teams classification, showing great form, cooperation and communication between the team members.  A one-day second race took place in Sardinia on Sunday which put Geoffroy Lequatre in 3rd place.  Other teammates stepped up too with Jani Brajkovic, Markel Irizar and Ben Hermans taking 8th, 15th and 16th.  It was a most successful week in Italy.

The opening weekend in Belgium was this past Saturday and Sunday with both Vatikus and Steegmans successfully returning to racing after their recent injuries.  Despite a strong presence in the peloton, luck was not on the side of Team RadioShack.  With other teams riding into back wheels, breaking spokes and derailleurs, freezing cold rain, plus crashes on the ever-present cobbles, not much went the way it was supposed to.  Sam Bewley and Bjørn Selander made their team debuts and got a taste of what it’s like to fight for position with the big boys.  Gregory Rast and Sébastien Rosseler both felt great on Sunday in Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne with the Swiss rider taking 9th and the Belgian slotting into 14th.  Lessons were learned on this weekend and the enthusiasm is high for the rest of the classics season.

A month of cycling and many kilometers are now in the legs of the riders of Team RadioShack.  The men have felt success both as individuals and as a team and are ready to do battle for one another in the busy racing months of March and April.  Lance Armstrong takes a well-balanced team to race the Vuelta Ciclista a la Región de Murcia March 3-7, followed by another set of riders contesting Paris-Nice March 7-14th.   A strong start of the season for Team RadioShack sets up endless possibilities for success in the 2010 racing season.   We’ll be cheering!