Morema and Porte to compete in 2020 Tour de France with Trek-Segafredo

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Morema and Porte to compete in 2020 Tour de France with Trek-Segafredo

Bauke Mollema told Dutch media that he and Trek-Segafredo teammate Richie Porte will likely target next year's Tour de France, while team newcomer Vincenzo Nibali will focus on the Giro d'Italia and "probably will probably ride the Vuelta a España with us."

The 33-year-old Morema also said that after his victory at Il Lombardia this year and top-10 finishes at Flèche Wallonne, Grand Prix Cycliste de Monreal, Clasica San Sebastien, and Milano-Torino this season, he will focus on more one-day races in 2020. He told the Dutch AD newspaper on Saturday that he will focus on.

"My big dream is to be champion. World, Olympic, European, and national championships.

Morema, who won this year's Il Lombardia, proved that the World Championships and Olympic road races are the perfect hilly courses for Dutch climbers.

"I already had stage wins in the Vuelta and the Tour," he said. But winning at Monument is something special. It's hard to compare victories with each other, but I think winning in Lombardy is more important in cycling," he told AD after winning the Italian one-day race in mid-October, "I could feel it in my reactions, in my feelings going into the winter.

Morema will not give up riding Grand Tours anytime soon, and will continue to share leadership duties with Porte and Nibali at Trek-Segafredo.

"I will fight for the overall in the Tour, Nibali will go to the Giro, and probably the Vuelta with me.

"The team needs big names to sell bikes. A rider like [former Trek teammate] Alberto Contador gets more publicity than I do."

"This season Porte joined and I had the best year of my career. Next year Nibali will join us and we already have a race program in place."

Counting 12 seasons as a professional, Mollema said he thinks the sport has changed considerably and become much more competitive. But that change has come at a price.

"Every team now has two or three good general-class riders," he said. 'I've become more professional. I've noticed that I've changed too: I think about food a lot more. Everything is organic now, and I use a lot less sugar. When I first became a professional, I used to choose brown bread to eat.

"Now I have a radio in my ear and my meals are pre-programmed the same way. In that respect, the sport has lost a bit of its appeal," Morema said.

Morema, who finished a career-best sixth overall in the 2013 Tour de France, was a Grand Tour contender in the eyes of the Dutch public, but admits that with the success of Tom Dumoulin and a new generation of Dutch riders, interest in him has not reached the level it once did

"I've never complained about the attention," he said. But there are many other good players in Holland, and I don't belong to a Dutch team. And I've never wanted to be the center of attention."

When asked how long he would be able to race at his current level, Mollema warned that he was going nowhere.

"I feel like I can still go on for a few more years.

"Maybe it's because I started racing a little later in life, but my mind is a little fresher than most athletes who have competed in all the youth competitions. For example, I would be happy to race the Tour de Flanders and the three Grand Tours every year for the next three or four years. I don't feel old and I still have a lot left in me."

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