Sulzberger superb in Down Under return

Sulzberger crashed out of last year’s edition of Australia’s round of the WorldTour but made amends with a consistent performance during a week in which his UniSA teammates Will Clarke and Rohan Dennis made waves with strong showings.

Whilst Sulzberger’s 23rd overall may not rival fellow Tasmanian Clarke’s stage win in Stirling or Dennis’s mountains classification victory on paper, his place in the elite selection on the Willunga stage and consistency all week were notable positives for the 28-year-old, who finished the Tour Down Under ahead of 2008 world champion Alessandro Ballan and 2011 Paris-Tours victor Greg Van Avermaet.

“I was just happy to stay out of trouble this year after crashing out on the second day last year,” Sulzberger said.

“It’s been a good tour for us. We had the stage win, Rohan in the young rider’s and KOM jersey… We couldn’t have had a better tour, really.”

Sulzberger’s name wasn’t amongst those in the UniSA lineup when the first members of the squad were announced but his strong showing at the Australian Open Road Championships earlier this month saw him included, along with Clarke. And both made the most of their opportunities.

“I started training two months out to be good for Nationals in order to make this squad… I myself set a goal to be in this team,” Sulzberger said.

Sulzberger’s Down Under experience wasn’t completely without mishap, however. A puncture before the final ascent of Old Willunga Hill on the decisive fifth stage saw him miss contesting the finale after he had made the elite selection that included stage winner Alejandro Valverde and eventual overall victor Simon Gerrans.

“It was very disappointing; I think I could have been top 10 overall if I hadn’t had that puncture,” Sulzberger said.

“It shattered me a bit, although that’s just bike racing and I know that I’ve got the form to perform well and I’m just looking forward to having a good year.

Indeed, Sulzberger’s performance this past week bodes well for the upcoming season after enduring 12 months he describes as “devastating”. Following the collapse of Pegasus Sports, with whom he had signed a contract, he broke his collarbone at last year’s edition of the Tour Down Under and spent most of the year competing at various events in the US when he should have been racing in Europe.

“Last year, after I broke my collarbone here, I never really got back to the form I had when I arrived at Down Under. I don’t know whether it was mental or what it was… But I think it had a lot to do with the collapse of Pegasus,” he explained.

“I’m all over that now and you can see that my form’s good, my motivation’s really good and I’m looking forward to a new start with the Raleigh team. I’m back to where I want to be right now and I’m happy.”

Unlike his Pegasus Sports experience, Sulzberger says his Raleigh team boss maintains regular contact, which is reassuring for the Tasmanian, whose brother Wes will compete for GreenEDGE in 2012 and his sister the Jayco-AIS women’s squad. He also gets a European racing program and hopes the season will bear fruit in several ways.

“I get over to Europe and do a one-day race in Holland after our Mallorca team camp then we’re off to Singapore for the OCBC Criterium. After that we do a tour in France. The program is good,” he said.

“I’ll be going to those races as a leader and role model because we have a lot of young guys. I’m looking forward to teaching them how to race and it’ll be a change for me,” Sulzberger continued.

“At this stage I’m on a one-year contract and we’ll see how things go… Obviously I’d like to go to a team racing in the WorldTour but if it doesn’t happen, it doesn’t happen. We’ll see how the year pans out and I’ll be trying to get the best results I can.”

Twitter: @Les_Clarke