Enjoying the sunshine at the Tour of Qatar
Photo: © Ken Ilegems

The Ken Ilegems Diary

Telekom mechanic Ken Ilegems provides an occasional look behind the scenes into the mechanic's truck at the races.

Index to Ken Ilegems diary entries

Counting the days

I said in my last entry that I hoped to be back on track in a few weeks. Well the weeks became months. I never thought the recovery would take this long, I underestimated the mono a bit. I also realize if you get this disease as a rider your season is finished.

My normal season schedule includes a break after the German championships, so I didn't really miss so many races, if you don't count it in days: only the Giro, Tour of Catalunya and the German nationals. When Rudy Pevenage gave me my schedule for the rest of the season a few weeks ago, I saw my first race was going to be the Sachsen Tour, starting on July 24. At that time I was sure I was going to be fit and ready without any problems for that race.

But as time went by, some doubts came into my mind. I felt good, but my blood results still showed traces from the virus. The last weeks I was really counting the days to get back on the job, another delay would be bad for my morale. The date came nearer, so a decision had to be made. There was a possibility of staying at home another week and doing the Tour de la Region Wallonne, but that would cause some difficulties for the rest of the program. So after some phone calls with Rudy, Walter, Frans and Greet and the advice of team doctor Heinrich the decision was made to let me go the Sachsen Tour. It's not the hardest and most stressful race to begin with, so it's perfect for me to get back into the rhythm. I'm still a bit nervous about it, after all I don't know how my body will react after 2 and a half months of sickness and rest, but I think that will be gone soon when the race has started.

I have to say my team was very supportive during the last few months. They gave me the time to recover without any pressure. And it felt good to get a phone call from one of them once in a while just to ask how I was feeling. I'm really thankful to them for that and I hope I can repay them for their trust in me. I also want to thank those few friends who were also a real support.

With nothing to do I had the chance to watch all the Tour stages on television.

It was a rather strange and extremely fast Tour this year. The first 12 stages saw 11 different winners from 11 different teams. Only Armstrong managed to win two stages to that point. Until then I thought there might be a real battle for the yellow until the end, but Armstrong proved on stage 11 he was strong enough to continue the dominance we've seen in the last years.

The battle for green was very exciting and with the presence of Zabel it interests me lot of course. I expected it to be decided on the Champs Elysees and I hoped it would be going home in the direction of Unna (Germany) for the seventh time in a row, but it was not to be...

Back in business

I've been back on the job for about three weeks now and to be honest, it felt good to be back but I still feel that I'm not fully fit. I get tired quickly, my recuperation is not so good and fatigue is causing some stomach problems... But I expected something like that, so it's not a huge setback.

My debut in the Sachsen Tour was okay, but the race wasn't the easy and fun race I remembered from last year. This year's edition had long transfers and the stages were also too long for a small race like that. On day 4 there was a double stage. That's not unusual in a small tour, but this time it was a 30km time trial with the first rider starting at 8am, and the second part was a 107km stage with start at 3.30 pm. This meant some riders had to wait almost seven hours between the two parts. Lucky for the teams and riders that the UCI finally changed the regulations on this item.

The Sachsen Tour finished on the same day as the Tour de France. As I wrote before Armstrong proved to be the strongest and battle for green was exciting till Paris. Unfortunately for us, McEwen gained the green this year...

One week later I was in Hamburg for the first of the summer World Cup races. The team was incredibly motivated for a couple of reasons. Zabel was defending his title from last year, it was a nice opportunity for a rematch with McEwen and the race was held in Germany.

But seven punctures and a crash decided our race before the finish. It seems there is a curse on the team in the World Cup this year. It started with Zabel's crash in Milan-San Remo, Wesemann's crash in the Tour of Flanders on the Koppenberg when he was in the decisive break, Wesemann's bike and shoe change in Paris-Roubaix on the moment Museeuw attacked and now Zabel's puncture deep in the final.

The next race in San Sebastian wasn't much better for us. After a rainy day we only had Udo Bölts in the main field, finishing 18th.

If you say Spain, august and a city near the sea, I immediately start thinking on sun and beach. This year's San Sebastian was an exception on that. From the moment we arrived till the moment we left I saw lots of clouds, rain and wind. During the race I was thinking this was more of an early spring classic.

Because I'm still not in my best shape, the team changed my schedule a little so I will have some more rest before the Vuelta starts. Normally I had to be on my way to Zurich, three Italian races and the GP Schwarzwald now, but instead I'll do the GP Merckx, close to my home in Belgium.

Till next time,
Ken