Czech cyclist Karel Vacek will fulfill one of his biggest dreams on Saturday. He will line up at the start of the Giro d’Italia race, and thus experience the premiere at one of the Grand Tours events.
He did not get into the final eight-member nomination of the Corratec-Selle Italia team until a few days before the race.
“It was at the last minute, but of course I’m glad that I’m going. It means a lot to me because I’ve never ridden a Grand Tour before. And riding a Grand Tour is the pinnacle of cycling. It’s a satisfaction for me,” gushed the Czech representative.
“Furthermore, the Giro is the biggest race from the Grand Tours after the Tour de France. And I think it is also the most difficult in terms of profile. It will be extremely difficult this year as well,” he realized.
The goal is for him to reach Rome on May 28, which would mean that he has completed the demanding twenty-one-stage race.
“I haven’t ridden a Grand Tour yet, so I can’t say exactly what my ambitions will be and whether I’ll finish at all, but I think I’ll be well prepared. We’ll see how it goes. It’s obviously a big challenge,” declared Vacek.
The Giro can ride thanks to the wild card his second-division team received. Corratec will not ride with ambitions for the overall standings, but he still wants to be seen as much as possible.
“The biggest star is Valerio Conti, but he certainly won’t go for the overall ranking, he’ll rather try, like me, for individual stages. He has experience and knows how to win, he’s fast to the finish line and has already ridden several stages in the pink jersey. It’s mainly thanks to him that the Giro also we’re going,” the Czech rider mentioned to his teammate.
“I would possibly try to go to the escapes and in the hills and try to get the most out of it. We’ll see what’s possible,” thought Vacek.
So far, the longest race was a nine-day race. Now he has more than three weeks of hard work ahead of him. “But I had so much fun with other competitors, so if you get past the first week, then there are no big fluctuations anymore, the legs hurt the same every day. It’s more about morale,” he realized.
“You have to take it day by day and stage by stage as individual races, because when you then tell yourself that there are another ten or fourteen stages waiting for you, it’s hard on morale. In any case, I’m well aware that it will be a lot of hard work,” he added cyclist.
The last test for something was the race Around the Alps in the second half of April. “I just expected to come there in better shape. However, I made a little mistake in my preparation that I decided to go home from Italy after about seven months, when I wasn’t there for so long,” admitted Vacek.
“I risked it because the weather was supposed to be good, but it changed from one day to the next and it was snowing in Šumava. So I went into a slump with my performance and in the first stage I totally executed myself. Now I know that I should have tried otherwise.”
However, he has a mostly positive impression of the course of the season so far. “If I take it from a personal point of view, I always expect the maximum from myself, so even at the Tour of the Alps I expected more from myself, but on the other hand, I was a bit depressed and I did not fine-tune the last few days optimally. And if in today’s times you come to some races and you’re not in the World Tour, so you need to be at your peak to even race with those people. The first 20-25 people are super strong. Cycling today is completely different than it was, say, five years ago. it’s not easy,” admitted the twenty-two-year-old competitor.
He is pleased with the stable performance. “I’m probably the only one from the team to have covered all the races and I think decently. I rate it positively, even though I expect more from myself. And maybe the whole team as a whole expects more, but we’re relatively still at the beginning of the season. The team is new and I believe that the results should still come. It probably won’t be a completely miraculous season, but now we’re going to the Giro, everything is possible in these races. We can be seen in a breakaway, a breakaway like that can even come, it would be fantastic if something like that could happen, Vacek dreamed.
He also constantly follows the actions of his younger brother Mathias, who gets a place in the Trek-Segafredo world tour stable. “I’m still watching my brother. The goal is of course to get behind my brother and I’m doing everything for that. I believe it could happen. Brother pairs are in demand in the World Tour because teams know that no domestic or teammate can help as much as brother will help brother. Hopefully it will work out one day so that I don’t have to watch my brother only on TV, at the most if he runs a different race than me,” Vacek pointed out.
“I will put everything into it to show myself somewhere this year. If I didn’t believe that we would meet in one team, I might not even ride after everything I’ve been through. If it succeeds and we meet in one team , it would be the ceiling of everything,” added Vacek.
And who advises whom more? “Now it’s the other way around. I go to my brother more for advice, because he’s a category higher and has better tricks, he’s ahead. Before it was the other way around and I gave him advice, but let’s see, the tide may turn again.” Vacek said with a smile.
