Robbie McEwen hasn’t won anything in two months now. Since that stage in the Tour of Switzerland nothing seems to work out anymore for the Australian Lotto-Domo sprinter. The joys of last year have been replaced with painful lessons. The long hot summer has passed, and the leaves of the trees on the Parikeberg (Note: historic Flemish cycling hill) are slowly turning a shade of brown. Nature is showing the first signs of hibernation, and Robbie McEwen is counting the days to when he can start his own winter sleep. Six weeks to go until he can return Down Under. Six weeks left to try and end the season with a good vibration. The Lotto-Domo hitman doesn’t seem to feel at ease, living with this incertainty. The past few months have given him much to think about.

Giro Prologue 2002. Photo by Celine Tytgadt.

Gazet Van Antwerpen: You’re saying that you want to have a “train” like Petacchi and Cipollini. Weren’t you the rider who took pride in the fact that he could pull it off just fine on his own?

Robbie McEwen: Yeah, but I’m getting tired of having to fight for a good wheel all the time, just to have to see that I lack just a bit on the finish line. Especially Petacchi this season was s o strong in the last 50 metres that it was almost impossible to overtake him. Those guys are piloted to the finish by their team in a way that nears perfection. If I want to start winning some more again I’ll have to choose the same path. Eeckhout/Gardeyn, De Clercq, Van Bon, Vierhouten, Van Dijk and Vogels: that’s the ideal line-up. I’ve been pleading with the team management for a while now to attract Henk Vogels. My fellow Aussie is the perfect lead-out man for the last 600 metres.

GVA: Is that the only reason for the many near misses you’ve had this season?

RM: It’s a mix of a few reasons. The luck I had last year left me this year; I didn’t start in as good shape as last year in many races due to illness, injuries and crashes; and I made a few mistakes in composing my season program. I tried to make 2003 an exact copy of last season, but I forgot to listen to the signals my body was giving me. Which I always used to do in the past.

GVA: Some people are nevertheless claiming that it’s due to your professional focus not being all that.

RM: Whatever. I know that I give myself a hundred percent in my profession. Dwars door Vlaanderen, 2 Giro stages and one Tour of Switzerland stage are still nice results, wouldn’t you agree? I can’t help it that many people think my season is won or lost in the Tour alone. I’m not satisfied with my season so far myself, but if I’d won that sprint on the Champs Elysées, no one would be criticizing me like this.

GVA: Did it hurt to have to pass on that 2002 green jersey to a fellow countryman?

RM: Not really, it was rather the fact that I lost the jersey once again that got to me. If it had happened in complete honesty and fairness it would have been much easier to let go too, but now...I’ve seen that sprint again a few times by now; I made one mistake, and Cooke two. Baden and I had been “hanging” a few times earlier already in the Tour, sprinting on a straight line between the two of us seemed to have become impossible. But the frustrations are gone now. I would have found it a lot more difficult to swallow if it had been Zabel who had swooped the green.

GVA: Zabel again. What in heaven’s name is it between you two?

RM: (Thin smile) We just don’t get along well, that’s all.

GVA: Zabel said you were riding unfairly during the race and acted arrogantly afterwards at the World Championships in Zolder. Quite a few people agreed with him too. And a few months before that you told Lance Armstrong to shut his hole or you’d put your fist in it. You’re not gonna end up with many friends in the peloton that way.

RM: Friends…teammates are all a sprinter needs to win. But of course I care about what people think about me. I 've tr ied to keep the stronger words to myself since last year, because of the commotion it seemed to cause back then. I make sure that I don’t stop right after the finish line anymore either; instead I go straight to the team coach to think things over first. The adrenaline tends to make you say things that you better keep to yourself.

GVA: Why is that Lotto-Domo is collectively failing this season?

RM: Van Petegem and I have more or less lived up to our contracts. The other guys whose job it was to provide UCI points let us down. Ill, out of shape, on a bad time, a flood of injuries; there was always something the matter.

GVA: The team is making a free fall on the UCI ranking, both as a team and individually. It’s not very unlikely that you’ll have to beg for a wildcard next year.

RM: I’m pretty confident that the door to the classics will remain open, thanks to Van Petegem’s exploits this season. The Tour will be a different matter however.

GVA: Watching TV in July. Can you even imagine that?

RM: (Laughs) Without any difficulties. During and right after the Tour I mostly can’t care less for returning next year. The appetite for that race only stirs up during the spring classics. I can only hope that the Tour’s start in Liège next year will inspire Jean-Marie Leblanc to invite Lotto-Domo. After all , we’re kind of the Red Devils of Belgian cycling. (Note: Red Devils is the nickname for the Belgian national football team.)

GVA: A full-blood Aussie who counts himself in with the Red Devils, there’s a strange sight.

RM: Apparently Belgium isn’t having the greatest generation of riders at the moment, and because of that you made me half Flemish. I find that amusing. (Note: McEwen is referring to the fact that the Belgian media indeed focused on him during the Tour as if he were a Belgian rider, because he was about the closest thing to a Belgian rider with chances of winning anything, having lived here for a long time, riding for a Belgian team and speaking fluent Dutch.)

GVA: Does that ring true for the atmosphere in the team as well? A blind man could see that at least a part of the riders, team management and personnel are on totally different wavelengths.

RM: What would you expect? You’re not exactly collectively cheering out of hap p iness at the starting line when results aren’t coming along. But it’s not like we’re having a go at each other all the time either, eh.

GVA: What would you like to see changed at Lotto-Domo next year?

RM: There’s absolutely a need for a climber, someone who can win smaller stage races. Apart from that there should also be someone who can hang on until late in the race in the classics, someone who can score points behind the team leader. We can’t keep sliding away on the UCI ranking like this.

GVA: When it comes to victories this year the bounty looks a bit meagre. Six wins, an amount you already had reached in L’étoile de Bessèges last year. So you’ve got something to prove yourself as well. Not to mention those 650 UCI points you’ve still got to defend in the rest of the season.

RM: I won’t reach the amount I had last year, I can tell you that much already. I’m losing the 240 points I scored in  Zolder for sure, Hamilton is much too difficult for me, so I won’t be going there. I’ll have to ride extremely well to reach some 500 points still. I just want to win a few more races this season, where and when doesn’t really matter.

GVA: So you’ve still got the motivation, this far in the season?

RM: Last year there were those WC’s in Zolder, that made it easier to stay motivated. Don’t get me wrong, I’m still very hopeful for the rest of the season, but if I have to be really honest, I’d have to say that I’m counting the days that seperate me from my return to Australia. That countdown starts right after the Tour for me. (Laughs) Other colleagues even start counting days from the end of Paris-Nice!

GVA: You’re living very nice ly here, on the flanks of the Parikeberg. Your wife is local, you became a father here, and the biggest share of your fans is Flemish too. Doesn’t that bond with Australia loosen after living in Belgium for 7 years?

RM:  I am and always will be a full-blood Australian, but I don’t think I’ll ever be able to cut loose from Belgium either. At the moment me and Angelique are raising Ewan (16 months old) in English. When we’re off to Australia later this year we’ll start talking Dutch to him.  I hope I can make my career as a pro rider last  for some 5 more years, and then I just want some freedom. I’m not gonna sit around all day for the rest of my life, but I want to be able to do what I want, rather than what I h a ve to. Angelique and I talk about the future sometimes, but it’s all a bit vague for now. Half a year in Australia, half a year over here is what we’re thinking about so far.

GVA: To get back to you about that “train”. If Lotto-Domo had unlimited funds, who’d be your ideal lead-out man?

RM: (Roars with laughter) Alessandro Petacchi! But I’ve got a feeling he won’t like that idea much!

Source: Gazet Van Antwerpen, www.gva.be. Thanks to Jans Janssens for the translation.