While the Lidl-Trek team decided to build its team with Mads Pedersen at its center after the withdrawal of Tao Geoghegan Hart, Bauke Mollema did not hide his disappointment, he who hoped to participate one last time in the Tour de France.
The Lidl-Trek team has made a choice. While Tao Geoghegan Hart withdrew after a fall in the last Critérium du Dauphiné, the American team designated Mads Pedersen as its leader for the Tour de France with a collective built around the Dane to play for stage victories. At 37 years old and while he could have played a role alongside Giulio Ciccone in the mountains, Bauke Mollema does not fit into the plans of his leaders. It was with bitterness that the Dutchman reacted in the columns of the daily The Telegraph.
« It’s all the sadder because it was perhaps my last chance to participate in the Tour due to the increasingly strong competitionconfided the man whose best result on the Grande Boucle is a sixth place in 2013.
Motivation has been gone for a while now. » If he admits that making the trip to Florence this Saturday was not a goal, the native of Groningen saw this prospect take shape while his level of performance was satisfactory at the start of the season.
Mollema: “Disappointments are part of high-level sport”
« Our team has become so much stronger in all areas that my chances of participating were not great, he confided. Until, suddenly, I was riding very well in the classics and in the Tour of the Basque Country. » However, Bauke Mollema admits to having seen “the atmosphere change” after his retirement from the Tour de Suisse due to illness. “
It’s disappointing that the team doesn’t have confidence in me, I’m honest, says the Dutchman. I’ve been training really hard for this over the last few weeks. » The decision of the leaders of the Lidl-Trek team weighs on the morale of Bauke Mollema, who says he is “not motivated by the Tour of Wallonia or Burgos” and who affirms that participating in the Vuelta is not within the framework .
« Disappointments are part of high-level sport and this year I once again noticed that I was progressing, he concluded. I have a new trainer and it is having an effect. The fact that I’m not allowed to do the Tour is annoying and takes the motivation away for a while, but it will come back. » This decision confirms the change in status of Bauke Mollema within the Lidl-Trek team, with which he is under contract until 2026.
