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A conversation with Tyler Farrar: Looking to the future
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Tyler Farrar will end his 2005 season with Saturday’s espoirsroad race, when he lines up as one of the favorites for the gold medal.
The 22-year-old sprinter from Washington state has enjoyed a fabulousseason, winning the U.S. criterium title, a stage at the Tour de l’Avenir,Belgian races Trofee van Haspengouw and Challenge de Hesbaye as well asa stage in the Ronde de l'Isard d'Ariege in France.
Farrar is set to make the leap into the European pro leagues in 2006as he joins Cofidis on a two-year deal and he’s hoping he can cap his seasonwith a rainbow jersey.
VeloNews European correspondent Andrew Hood caught up with Farrarafter he came across the line 10th in Wednesday’s time trial. Here areexcerpts from the interview:
VeloNews.com: Did you do any special preparation for the world’s?
Tyler Farrar: I raced Avenir. I flew over after U.S. pro crit,so I’ve been here since there. Avenir went really well, won a stage a thereand had a couple of days in green. I feel like I came out of it strong.That was my preparation for the world’s.
VN.com: Your success at Avenir must give you confidence here?
TF: A one-day race is always a lottery, and especially here wherethere isn’t a caravan and all it takes is a flat tire to end your racefor the espoirs. So I will keep my fingers crossed. I have good legs goinginto the weekend, but it can go either way.
VN.com: What do you think about the course?
TF: It looks like it’s all about that last turn. I’ve been racinga lot of crits, so I’ll be used to that type of finish. Everyone is goinginto it knowing it’s going to be all about that last turn, so we’ll haveto wait and see. It’s such a crazy place here in Madrid, so we haven’treally been able to scope out the finish. We hardly even had time to checkthe time trial course yesterday because it wasn’t even closed, so we weredodging cars and tourists all day.
VN.com: Everyone is talking it will be a sprint, but do you thinkyou’ll have to be wary of a breakaway?
TF: Espoirs world’s is not like elite world’s, where they havenine-man team to really the field. We have five guys. You cannot controla 180km race with five guys. It’s a big gamble, whether we go in the breaksor wait for the sprint. We haven’t had our meeting yet, so I can’t saydefinitively what we’ll do, but it’s a course that lends itself to a sprint.It’s always unpredictable with such small teams. I am going to hope fora field sprint and hope I draw the right cards. I feel like my preparationhas been spot on.
VN.com: Are there any particular rivals you’ll want to watch?
TF: I think every team is bringing one or two good sprinters,so the race is very wide open. With a finish like that, in the final stageat the Vuelta, there were some guys in the top 10 who normally aren’t therein field sprints. You can only make up so much ground after a 180-degreeturn and 400 meters.
VN.com: So this is the last race of the year?
TF: Yeah, this is my last race and I look forward to gettinghome and relaxing a little bit. Next year is going to be a really big yearfor me with the ProTour, so I want to try to have a really solid winter.I’ll be up there until mid-January for the first training camp with Cofidis.
VN.com: That’s huge for you, how did you first get in contactwith the team?
TF: I’ve been in contact with Cofidis since the Tour de l’Avenirlast year when I won a stage. They’ve been really good to me, they keptin contact all winter with e-mails. When I came over in the spring, theysaid come down to Lille to say hi. They really went out of their wayto make me feel welcome. I ended signing my letter of intent before comingover and then my actual contract two days before Avenir. I look forwardto riding with them next year. It’s a dream come true to race in the bigleagues.
VN.com: So you didn’t have an agent or someone shopping yourname around, they approached you?
TF: Yeah, they approached me. I had some problems with the languagebarrier. I speak some French, but I’m not fluent yet, but Noel from thenational team helped me out. They were interested in wanting me to go withthem this year. I felt that I needed another year to develop. I thoughtgoing to ProTour at 21 was a little too young. It’s worked well for someriders, but I had a really good year in the U.S., getting to ride withGord, Scott Moninger, they taught me a lot. Racing a year with them willmake the transition to Cofidis a lot easier.
VN.com: Have you talked about what sort of schedule you’ll have?
TF: Nothing specific, but it will be a good program for development.I will be racing a lot of the point-ones and point-HCs, not jumping straightinto the ProTour races, but getting my feet wet at the level just belowthat.
VN.com: You come into the European scene with ambitious goals,when you look at the crystal ball, what do you see in three, five years?
TF: I think it’s everybody’s dream to ride races like Tour deFrance, Roubaix, Flanders, whether or not that will happen, we’ll haveto wait and see. I’ve made progress this year, and improved from the yearbefore that, I hope that trend will continue. I’m not the kind of riderto make big predictions. I hope I will be able to go and do something,help Stuart O’Grady in the sprints. It’s something I’ve worked on a lotlately and everyone says Stuart’s a great guy, so I am really looking forwardto it.
VN.com: Where will you be living?
TF: I will be living with Saul Raisin down near Monaco. I’veknown Saul since we were 17 years old. This is second year and he’s hadan amazing year. I think it will be fun living with him.
VN.com: You must very excited about it …
TF: Oh yeah. It makes motivation so easy. I already can’t waitfor next year. It’s nice to finish the year so excited for the next year.
