Astana and Fuglsang

Today, Cyclingnews reported that Jakob Fuglsang will be Astana's GC leader for for 2013 Tour de France. This to me is a stupid decision by Astana team manager, Giuseppe Martinelli. It's not that Fuglsang doesn't have quality. He has, and that's seen by his results this year when he won Tour of Austria and Tour of Luxembourg, even though he had problems with his team and Johann Bruyneel.

However, never in his career, Fuglsang has showed the ability to climb with the best. He showed promise in his first year but he never delivered. He's decent but, I think he isn't able to follow the likes of Alberto Contador, Andy Schleck, Cadel Evans or Chris Froome when the "real climbs" come. And you need to do that if you want to place at least in the top ten, especially in next year's Tour, that will favour the climbers. He's a good time trialist and he won't lose much time to the best and will even gain to some climbers who can't time-trial, like Andy Schleck. But that time will be lost in the mountains.

Such a strong team like Astana shouldn't gamble all in a cyclist who, to me, doesn't have the capability to make a impression in the Tour. Vincezo Nibali wants to fight for the Giro, so he's out of the question for the Tour. Maybe Astana could give a joint leadership to Fuglsang and Brajkovic, who was ninth last year. But the last will be helping Nibali in the Giro...