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Bewildering the bosses: A conversation with Graeme Brown

By Rupert Guinness,
Published: Jan. 1, 2007
Winning the fourth stage of the Tour of Germany
Winning the fourth stage of the Tour of Germany
Photo: AFP (file photo)

Until recently, Graeme Brown was considered to be something of an underachiever as a top-level road sprinter. At least that was the thinking of the managers at his Dutch Rabobank team, as Brown revealed in an interview with former VeloNews European correspondent Rupert Guinness in December.

Brown and Rabobank were set to part ways at the end of the ’06 season, when the man from New South Wales befuddled his bosses by stepping up to the plate and pulling off three impressive end-of-season wins in Europe. Suddenly there was renewed interest at Rabobank and the team inked a new road contract for the 2004 Olympic team pursuit and Madison gold medalist.

VeloNews: This season was significant for you. But your two wins in August at the Tour of Germany, in stage 4 and 8, and success in September in the one-day Tour de Rijke in the Netherlands developed into a turning point for your career.

Graeme Brown: You could say it was a turning point for my season and a turning point for my career. They were definitely wins that I needed, but wins I believe I could achieve. It was definitely a part of the season I needed and succeeded in fulfilling what I just had to do. It worked well.

VN: Often when things aren’t going well, you just need one result to restore self-confidence. That first stage win in Germany must have reassured you.

GB: Yeah, but not only myself, it reassured the team that I was a winner. I had done everything right all year. I had great form all year, managed to finish every race. I just kept making little mistakes. It was those little mistakes that I needed to refine. I am only 27. I am still a fair bit younger than all the main sprinters of the peloton. Of course, I will make mistakes. But I don’t want to make mistakes. I want to win races so I tried to learn as much as I could this year. I felt more like I was a neo-pro. I felt like it was my first year. I did twice as many races as I had done in any other year and finished almost every day of racing. So this year was more of a learning curve. I look forward to next year, knowing the races I am doing. Hopefully I can start off the season the way I finished this year.

VN: The jump up from a team such as Panaria, where you were, to a ProTour team such as Rabobank is a big one.

GB: It is in terms of size of race. Nearly every race I am doing now is ProTour which is at a big level. They are major races. And they are races I am capable of winning if everything goes well. With Panaria, they were all smaller races that I raced in with big mountains in them. I was basically unable to win. I am not very good on the mountains. It makes a very big difference.

VN: I understand that before the Tour of Germany, Rabobank said you could look for another team.

Graeme Brown Fact File
Born: April 9, 1979 in Darwin, Northern Territory, Australia
Resides: Menai, NSW
Team: Rabobank (Nl)
Home club: St George
Started cycling: 1975
Career highlights:Five wins at 2005 Tour de Langkawi2004 Olympic Madison gold2004 Olympic TeamPursuit gold2003 World teampursuit record

Website: www.graemebrown.com
 

GB: That’s true. Before Germany they said to me, “We are not interested in keeping you any more. We don’t believe you can win ProTour races.” Then luckily somebody got sick and I was able to do the Tour of Germany which I was training for anyway. And I got opportunities. I was in the best form I had been in for a very, very long time. I won the first race and the team went, “Hang on, he can win!”

The first time I won by myself. I did it all by myself. Then they went, “Hang on, what if we help him? Maybe he will win again.”

Then on the last day they all helped me from go to whoa and I won again! They went, “Geez, hang on. Maybe we have made a mistake.”

Then my next race wasn’t up for another four weeks. And they helped me to a bigger extent where they gave me a Petacchi- or Saeco-style lead-out and I won easily. Then they went: “Maybe we have made a mistake. This has never happened. We have never said no and then come back and said yes.”

For me that was an achievement in itself as well as the wins.

VN: Dutch teams can be pretty black-and-white in their thinking and Rabobank has been known to be pretty firm when it takes a stand.

GB: What they said was that basically in the space of a week in Germany I had turned around 180 degrees everyone’s opinion of me. Congratulations.

I said no worries. I just needed to get the ball rolling and I did and I seemed to have rolled on and won another race later on.

VN: So how much longer do you have at Rabobank now?

GB: One year. They didn’t want to (renew) for 2008 with it being an Olympic year. And I said I wanted to go back and do the Olympics. For them the Olympics aren’t a big goal, whereas road racing is. That’s fair enough.

VN: With 2008 being an Olympic year, though, they may be able to renegotiate a contract, no?

GB: I have a clause in my contract that says if I am to be re-signed, it will be by June of 2007. And hopefully we see from there, maybe it will be two years, three years, one year. You never know.

VN: What program do you have for 2007?

GB: First race will be Tour of Qatar which in late January, then the Tour of California. I have a little bit of input into what I want to do this year which is good. Basically, I would like to do what I did this year. It worked well. I am happy with it. And they are all good races. This year, this off-season, I am injury-free. I haven’t been injury-free for four or five years. Last year I had an operation on my Achilles, so I was unable to really, really push the training.

VN: You’ve never finished the Giro d’Italia. Is that on your list of things to do, to finish a grand tour?

GB: Definitely. The Tour de France is the main goal. When I was young I had two goals in my life. One was to be Olympic champion and one was the Tour de France green jersey.

I have one more box to tick and that could take a little bit of doing. There are a lot of good sprinters out there. Basically the main goal is the Tour, but my whole season is a goal. I have talked to Erik Dekker (now a Rabobank directeur-sportif) and he said, “We really believe and want you to win 10-12 races next year and we will support you 100 percent in achieving that goal.”

VN: Have they spoken to you about the Tour specifically?

GB: No, they have the likes of Rasmussen, Menchov, Boogerd for general classification. That is the main goal. The Tour at the moment, for 2007, isn’t a likely possibility, but if the form is excellent then it is a high possibility. We have to wait and see.

VN: And there is Oscar Freire there too for the sprints.

GB: Yeah. But if I am flying they will take me. If I am not on par, then it will be 100 percent towards general classification and Oscar Freire.

VN: And of course there is still the Giro d’Italia.

GB: I hate the Giro, but yeah I would like to do the Giro. It sounds funny, but it’s hard. I have done it a few times. I have only ever started and never gone past two weeks. I want to finish the Giro. That is definitely on the list of thing to do: to finish and win a stage of the Giro. I want to prove myself in the Giro. It’s been one of those little boxes where there’s always been a cross but I want to make it a tick.

VN: Look at Robbie McEwen’s career , a three-time Tour green jersey winner. His was very much a work in progress. Becoming a champion doesn’t happen overnight. It took him a while before he even won a stage.

Does knowing that help you to not be excessively anxious about having to achieve everything as soon as possible?

GB: I am a very anxious person. I want things to happen now. But I am very aware that things take time. Cyclists, especially road cyclists, supposedly peak at 28. I will be 28 in the middle of the year. So I am hoping that will be where I start to blossom as a road rider and hopefully I can be head-and-shoulders… .well, not head-and-shoulders , but neck-and-neck with Robbie McEwen more times next year.

 
Former VeloNews European correspondent Rupert Guinness iseditor and publisher of PelotonPress.net.