Tuft wins in Belgium; reveals he’s moving back to WorldTour in 2012

Svein Tuft powered to victory in GP Stad Zottegem on Tuesday to deliver SpiderTech’s first European victory of the 2011 season.

SpiderTech-powered by C10 scored a second place with Will Routley in the Tro-Bro Léon race in April while Tuft won four races on Canadian roads, but the win Tuesday in the Belgian one-day race is the team’s first in Europe this season.

Tuft powered to a 36-second victory ahead of Willem Wauters, with Adam Blythe crossing the line third at 41 seconds back.

Tuft attacked with Klass Lodewyck with 30km to go, and then soloed home the victory with a race-winning surge with 12km to go.

The SpiderTech team, managed by former pro Steve Bauer, has enjoyed a busy European race schedule this season and aims to join the elite WorldTour by the 2013 season.

Tuft, a silver medalist at the elite world TT championships in 2008, joined the Canadian team this season after racing during the 2009-2010 seasons with Garmin and gave the upstart team a huge boost.

The team will be moving forward without the 34-year-old Tuft, however, who notified the squad earlier this month he is returning to a WorldTour team next season.

Tuft has yet to reveal which team that will be, but SpiderTech officials thanked the veteran for his presence on the roster during this season.

“We are grateful for what Svein brought to the team this year and, while we’re scheduled to elevate to the World Tour in 2013, we recognize that Svein, as an athlete in his thirties, has a limited window of opportunity and hence felt that he needed to rejoin the World Tour now,” said Steve Bauer, the team’s co-founder and sports director in a team release.

“Racing at the World Tour level is what every rider aspires to, and we certainly wish Svein lots of success in his new endeavor. Moving forward, this opens up some roster opportunities for Team SpiderTech and we have been delighted by the attention we’ve received and the number of extremely capable, seasoned riders that have been approaching the team to ride in 2012. Of course, we have also been pro-actively targeting some key riders ourselves.”