Martin Hacecky: “We wanna be part of the game in San Luis”

By @pmpalermo

When Tour de San Luis organizers unveiled the list of participating there was a  a small squad of Czech Republic, the ASC Dukla Praha, between World Tour “ “monsters” and national selections.

 The intrigue of who writes increased over time, as different teams confirmed their riders, and the unknown Czech track team was still no sign of life referring to South American trip.

 Uncertainty led us to contact one of its members, Martin Hacecky perhaps best able to answer our questions, as well as cycling is a sports commentator and writer, a very intellectually prepared person.

 Hacecky reveals who will come to Argentina and its characteristics, a bit of history of military origin team, and how they got the invitation to participate in the fastest growing career of world cycling.

 Why are you coming to San Luis? How did you get the invitation?

ASC Dukla Praha is an army team focused on track racing since ever and still a track is the most important discipline as governement supports us only if the has medals from European or World Championships and without this support it wouldn’t be possible to make anything. The team includes all the best Czech track riders. As the team is succesfull in track boards there was some space to focus more on road racing and the team is steadily growing and becoming competitive on the road, too. This is thanks to our main manager Jan Kopac, who works hard to make a good race calendar for us. He became close friend to Mr. Claudio Santi – former Italian national coach, director od Fiorenzuola sixdays and candidate for the next president of Italian cycling federation. Mr. Santi likes our attitude to racing, believes in us and also last season he helped us to get an invitation to famous italian one-day races. „If we have something interesting for orga nizers what to talk about, it’s much easier to get for the race“ he said. We have Czech road national champion, we have many road races won, apart from titles from track. Mr. Santi became our next manager and didn’t hesitate to ask Giovanni Lombardi if he could get an invitation to San Luis. And he could. It was such a surprise for us (riders), too…

 Which objectives do you have in here?

Last year we raced with pro’s and we know it’s not easy. This is another level, even more ProTeams are invited, the best riders from all over the world, who have their contracts because they are the best. But they are humans as we are, we are able to pace 60km/h as they are. It’s impossible to say which concrete objectives we have. But we want to be part of the game.

 Name of the riders who are coming

Martin Blaha – vice-World champion and European Champion in madison. Experienced, one of the most valuable member of the team

Martin Hacecky – that’s me http://www.pezcyclingnews.com/?pg=fullstory&id=11026&status=True&catname=Latest

Vojtech Hacecky – my brother – European Champion in madison, world cup winner – madison

Jiri Hochmann – partner of Martin Blaha for madison (similar palmares)

Milan Kadlec – The most experienced rider of the squad, Czech national champion, former pro (Lampre, Mobilveta, Vini-Caldirola, ZVVZ), our „Capo“.

Alois Kankovsky – one of the fastest guys on the planet. Sprinter with all the skills he needs to win bunch sprints. His SRM shows more than 2000 Watts in sprint. (I’m not kidding)

 What kind of riders you are?

The only rider able to climb well is Milan Kadlec. We are gonna have problem in Argentina in climbs, but hopefully we will be able to pass them. Martin Blaha, me and my brother we are break specialists able to ride fast for a long time. Jiri Hochmann with Milan Kadlec are perfect lead-out men for Alois, Jiri is ambitious in sprints too. We would like to show we can cooperate to prepare the best position for the sprint.

 How is the the remaining calendar of the team?

Tour of San Luis should be part of preparation for track World champ in the second half of February. 3 riders from the „Argentinian“ squad are heading there. The others will spend another month on Mallorca to be ready fo Coppi-Bartalli in March, then we have many races in Poland, Austria and Czech rep., in May we should go to Giro del Venezia-Giulia and Tour of Iran to be ready for Nationals, in the summer there should be Quinghai Lake in China, which could be very important as it’s 2.HC race. But nothing is confirmed yet.

What do you know about Argentina? And what about this race?

Mr. Santi is one of the most passionate fan of tango so if there was some challenge in dancing instead of bicycle racing we’re gonna nominate him againts homespecialists… And we’re looking forward how tastes famous Argentinian beef steak. We’ve been in South America allready, but it’s our first time in Argentina so we are excited how it looks like. I’d love to see Ands so I hope in nice weather when flying to Mendoza. And of course we know the thing about Falklands so I’m quite curious how Argentinian fans will react if Cav wins the sprint J

If you’re heading to the race like this you try to find out as much information as possible. I spoke with some guys who were there three or four years ago and they were quite satisfied. I believe that the start list shows the race is becoming more and more famous and I expect huge experience. There are not many occasions when you could race with pro’s, with the guys like Cavendish, Sagan, Contador, Nibali, Van den Broeck and many others.

 What expectations do you have about this trip?

We have not many expectations from the race. We’re ambitious, but realistic. We know we are able to show our jersey, but we need a lot of luck. But we would like to confirm that we deserve the opportunity given from the organizers, it’s big responsibility to Mr. Lombardi, too. We will do our best. And we’re gonna enjoy ourselves in Argentina.

Pablo Martín Palermo