Wohlberg determined to make amends for last year

Eric Wohlberg loves Australia – but don’t dare suggest the Canadian champ is coming here for a holiday

The oldest rider in the field, who boasts four top-10 Tour finishes, watched as his team’s plans disintegrated in gusty crosswinds on the second stage from Shepparton to Bendigo last year.

Only teammate Dominique Rollin joined the decisive break that gained almost 30 minutes on the peloton.

“It was really disappointing for us – Dom did well to be part of it, but it didn’t leave the team in a strong position from very early on,” Wohlberg said from his Californian base yesterday. “This year we are gonna race hard, be involved right from the start and see what happens.”

The popular Wohlberg, a triple Olympian and 1998 Commonwealth Games gold medallist, said his team had many riders capable of a podium finish in Melbourne.

“We haven’t got set plans for one guy. You can only make so many plans, as we saw last year,” Wohlberg said.

His season has been tailored towards the success of his Canadian trade team, Symmetrics. He said three members of that squad – Zach Bell, Andrew Randall and Jeff Sherstobitoff – would join him in Victoria after a successful season in the UCI Americas Tour.

“We’re in pretty good form. We’ve had a couple of weeks’ break after riding 19 of 22 days in the tours of Venezuela and Missouri, so we can’t wait to get down there and give it a shot,” Wohlberg said.

The Symmetrics squad won the UCI Americas team title and rode team leader Svein Tuft into individual honours overall.

The only downside was Jacob Erker breaking his collarbone in a Tour of Missouri fall.

“But that has given us a chance for a real promising youngster, Ryan Anderson . . . to come and get some international experience,” Wohlberg said.