Marcel Kittel chose not to embellish when asked about his goals for Abu Dhabi – the Giant-Alpecin sprinter would rather not be here but he committed to finishing the season with the German team before moving to Ettix-Quick-Step in 2016 and will just be riding for one last hurrah with his team-mates.
With three of the four stages of the Abu Dhabi Tour lending themselves to the sprinters, one would have thought Kittel would try to finish his disappointing season on a high note by going for some wins on the flat roads of the UAE capital but it seems the German – an eight-time stage winner at the Tour de France – is ready to put 2015 to bed.
“How can I say that diplomatically? Yeah, let’s say the team and I had an agreement that I would finish the season and this race. For me, honestly spoken, it could have been earlier because it’s been a year where I struggled all the time,” Kittel said on Tuesday.
“When I came, I don’t know how many times back and to be on a good level, but a lot of times I failed and it’s of course not easy to motivate yourself at the end of the season to be again at a good level.
“I probably do not have the form to be competitive here. Since I am changing teams, it will be nice to ride this race for my team-mates, and to ride with them for the last time.”
The 27-year-old added: “I’ve had a really bad season, being sick a lot of the time. I can’t say that I’m happy. But I’m happy with my change to a new team now and to be able to make a new start there.”
Kittel, who emerged as one of the strongest sprinters in the peloton over the last couple of seasons could not keep up his form in 2015 and had to miss the Tour de France this year over lack of fitness having been hit by a virus that disrupted his schedule.
Asked to reflect on what made his season particularly difficult, Kittel was unwavering in his analysis.
“I was in very crucial moments two times sick and the result was that I lost a lot of training and racking kilometres. I had to postpone a lot of comebacks because I had to get healthy first. That’s very sad and disappointing for me but in the end that’s also the reason why it’s now hard to build up stable form at the end of the year. Where shall it come from if I have no base?” admits Kittel.
With Mark Cavendish departing Ettix, Kittel is regarded as a replacement for the star sprinter. Would that add extra pressure on the German?
“I wouldn’t say this puts a lot of pressure on me. I think it’s more that I also expect something from myself. I think it would be wrong to make it too tough for me now regarding the pressure because it is a new start and a new team and of course it needs some time to work how we want it to work. We need to take time and that’s the challenge,” he explains.
Kittel admits he has had some conflicts of opinion with Giant-Alpecin this year and he’s looking forward to having a fresh start with Ettix-Quick-Step.
“The new challenge is the reason (I’m switching teams). I think it’s not a secret that it was a difficult year for me. I didn’t always agree with everything within our team but for now I would just like to say thank you, especially to my team-mates, the riders, they supported me in an awesome way in the last race,” he said.
“We grew together in a world class team and they are memories that I will never forget. For me it’s now most important to be able to have a fresh cut and re-start with a new team in 2016 in a new project.”
While Kittel says he’s not ready to compete for stage wins in Abu Dhabi, he is hoping to snatch some hours of R&R during his four days in the capital.
“I arrived this morning (Tuesday). We’ve come here from fall in Europe to late summer in Abu Dhabi, for the riders I think it’s a very big change physically. But I think the race itself is organised in a way where it’s not super demanding for the riders so it’s a nice end to the season. It’s a race where you can also let yourself go a little bit, you can go to the pool before or after the race and enjoy your work. I think it’s a very important part, together with the UCI Gala to celebrate the end of the season,” he says.
