Before the Vuelta we made a deal with the Novo Nordisk – SAS management that we would get a press conference with at least one rider, but with guarantee that everyone who managed to win anything in the Vuelta would be here.
So we have the entire team here for questions…
We’ll start off with a couple of questions for the man in red:
Willy: How would you rate the Vuelta compared to le Tour? Is there something for you that makes it special, that maybe le Tour doesn't offer?
Obviously the Tour is something unique and I’m happy to have raced it three times with 2 top 10’s as a result but the Vuelta seems to be the race most suiting for me. In 2014 I got a bit of a breakthrough by being very strong in the last half of the race helping Chris to his 2nd place that year and with this win the Vuelta will always have a very special place in my heart – even if I perhaps won’t come back every year.
The Vuelta was very sensational, especially the last week. Did you feel any pressure? How did you handle the pressure?
The biggest pressure was really hanging on to Chris and Thomas when they were pacing uphill (laughs, red.). The manager just expected me to fight with everything I had and we always knew that the slightest bit of misfortune would be enough to lose the race, so I just went out there and pedaled to the point where I started doubting if my legs would fall off…
And then a few questions for the man in white,
Tobias Ludvigsson:
While Willy won the Vuelta, you did an awesome job by winning the Young Rider classification. How do you feel about Willy's victory? Is you dream to win a Grand Tour as well in the future? And which one would you like to win?
To be honest this youth jersey came as a big surprise for me and I probably wouldn’t have been able to take it if any of the real young stars such as Kelderman or Quintana was here or if Elissonde hadn’t decided halfway through the race that he didn’t really want to race. I’m very happy to have it on my palmares and a big thanks goes to the team for allowing me a very free role after I took the jersey in order to defend it.
I don’t see myself as a future GT winner though. I’m generally more a rider for the smaller tours I think.
As you mention there seems to be a huge discrepancy in the field. Only 11 riders were classified as young riders, the last one having five hours gap on you. How would you explain such a huge difference?
A lot of teams only use their young riders as slaves so it was mainly young riders who ended up falling for the time limit. We we’re actually 31 young riders lined up for the start, but most just wasn’t ready and were forced to work their legs off early leaving them no chance of survival.
That’s not how things are run on this team and that’s a big part of why I love it here!
In fact you won the U25 jersey ahead of your teammate. The team certainly has established itself to be the place to be for any upcoming Nordic riders. How would you rate the talent pool of Novo Nordisk?
One word: Amazing!
The management has a policy of not only signing a lot of talented youngster, but also allowing them to rider their own chance which helps their development a lot. On top of that we also have a lot of great trainers as well as a sufficient amount of veterans to take the pressure of us allowing us to be more free in the way we ride. We know that the team will always get results thanks to guys like Fuglsang, Breschel, Boasson Hagen and in previous years Hushovd, so it’s not the end of the world when I get beaten by Sagan in Eneco…
Chris Anker: You showed a great team performance and in large parts thanks to you the team could snatch many stage wins and jersesys. On stage 17 you went with Henao and Antón instead of staying with Willy Ipsen. That day could have cost Willy Ipsen the jersey. Did you felt like going for the stage win, how was it in accordance with the team strategy?
I know that could very well look weird for outsiders. I had worked hard for Willy in the final part of the race, as he had a really bad day.
Then when the final km came I tried keeping him at the wheel of Henao and Antón as they started sprinting, but he cracked as soon as the pace went up. I hesitated a moment when I saw it, but he told me to go for it to pick up as many bonus seconds as possible and perhaps get the stage for myself. In a way it succeded as I at least finished ahead of Sergio.
We spoke again right after we passed the line and he said there wasn’t anything I could have done for him in the finish – he was just empty.
And back to another question for
Willy:
Sergio Henao and Igor Antón certainly made the race exciting until the end. Team Novo Nordisk drove a pretty hard bargain in the last stages though. Despite this, what would you describe as vital for winning the Vuelta?
You could say that again. I’m pretty sure it was a better show on TV than it was on my bike!
If it hadn’t been for the awesome work by the team in the last week I would have finished 3rd, so I’m extremely grateful for their selfless effort!
Chris Anker Sørensen & Thomas Löfkvist: Last year you both finished fourth and fifth. Now you finished seventh and tenth. Are you proud on what you achieved as a team? Did you have any problems to give up your own chances to help Willy winning the Vuelta?
Chris: I was lucky to finish 2nd after Purito crashed 10 m before the finish line in Madrid in 2014, but I wasn’t able to follow it up with a podium last year and to be honest I would rather be 7th after helping a friend win the race than finishing 4th without getting a team mate on the podium.
Thomas: I’m just happy to have been part of this team and in spite all my work this is my 2nd best GT result in my entire career. The team have been good to give me a lot of chance sin the biggest races the last couple of year, but to be fair I haven’t been able to prove that I should be a captain in the biggest races. I’m just not as good a climber as Ipsen so no hard feelings there.
Willy:
How are the chances that Jakob and you will both focus your efforts on le Tour next year, so that one of you tries to go for the podium spot or even the win and split the captaincy?
That’s partly up the team management and partly the race organizers.
Usually we sit down at the start of the season when all the profiles have been published and split the races between us. As you know it’s not our style to send all our captains to one race, but rather to focus on doing things the along entire season confident that youngsters as myself in the past and Tonning, Ludvigsson etc. now will step up and prove their talent. With that in mind I would be surprised if both me and Jakob went to the Tour. Perhaps if I get a program similar to this year and Jakob decides to do Giro-Tour?
We'll finish of with a few questions for the World Champion
Matti Breschel: Is taking the Rainbow Jersey for another year a goal for this season? How do you handle the pressure from the Rainbow Jersey?
I think I’ve handled the pressure rather well even though I’m annoyed at not winning in Milano – Sanremo or San Sebastian. I’ve certainly handled it better than Gilbert did the three years before and it has been great to experience how the fans receive me (or perhaps more the jersey) – you know I haven’t had to pay for coffee on a café one single time since I won the worlds and the amount of camera’s remind me of when I was a model years ago.
If any of the readers have trouble remembering the great moments from Matti's year in rainbow we refer to the
August edition of the Rear Wheel
You seem to be in excellent shape for the World Championships. Who do you consider your main contenders?
Sagan is one rider that will be hungry for a win after always being a favourite but never really performing. Gilbert seems back to his old self and always performs at the Worlds, so even though he's retiring I won’t count him out either. Edvald plans to be in great shape so if he is in the same group as me on the finish line I could be in trouble. Kruziger also looks sharp, though he looked better in the first half of the Vuelta than the last.
If Henao and Antón can carry on their Vuelta form to the Worlds they will be very hard to beat as well…
Your teammate Edvald Boasson Hagen had an unbelieveable streak of wins at le Tour. If push comes to shovel, how can you react to a man that had such a stellar season lately, especially in a possible sprint?
In a regular flat sprint I can’t. At least not when he’s in top shape. Edvald is an amazing rider capable of pretty much anything and with a deadly finish he is capable of beating everyone as long as it’s not on too steep terrain.
Matti Breschel
Brian Bulgac
Enrico Magazzini
Sergio Henao
Peter Kennaugh
Roman Kreuziger
Romain Sicard
Robert Kiserlovski
Thomas Löfkvist
Novo Nordisk - SAS
, another win in the World Champion jersey 
Marcel Kittel
Gianni Meersman
