Aldag buries hatchet with team owner over Cavendish omission
Rolf Aldag, the performance director who selected Mark Cavendish for the Tour de France only to be controversially overruled by Dimension Data team principal Doug Ryder, has agreed to stay on the race after clear-the-air talks with the South African.
Aldag did not deny he had considered quitting on the opening day of the race on Saturday as the fallout over Cavendish’s non-selection threatened to engulf the team. The German explained to The Daily Telegraph yesterday that he did not want to be a “destructive” presence.
“I have to judge whether I’m being helpful or whether I’m not being helpful,” Aldag said before yesterday’s team time trial. “Can I be constructive to people? If people think I’m not being supportive then I’m probably not the right person to be here.” Ryder claimed on Saturday that it had been a “team decision” to drop Cavendish, only for a clearly exasperated Aldag to make it clear that it had been Ryder’s call alone and that he felt Cavendish should have been selected. Aldag added that “after being involved in around 50 stage wins at the Tour” he felt he had proved he had “an all right judgment”.
Clearly they have decided to bury the hatchet. “The last thing I want to do is to rip the team to pieces,” Aldag said when asked how close he had come to quitting. “I did ride the Tour 10 times and you need to feel the support and that the team is one team. If I can’t contribute to that, it wouldn’t be helpful.
“If I’m not allowed to focus on the race for whatever reason … that is just really destructive for me. The eight guys who are here deserve support. None of them has done anything wrong.”