Short, fast and explosive Giro stage!
The yesterday’s stage of the Giro can be described with three words – a short, fast and explosive stage with the final mountaintop finish at Blockhaus.
Carlos Sastre commented after the race, “I would like to thank all my teammates who have done a sensational job, helping to make the race as hard as possible for my benefit. But my rivals were stronger than me today and they managed to secure an important advantage in the lead up to the general classification of the Giro d’Italia.”
“The tactic today was the same tactic we’ve had for all three weeks,” said Sports Director Jean Paul Van Poppel. “Working for Carlos and to make sure to get him in the best position. Of course we know that Carlos is the man for very long stages with lots of climbs; that’s when he’s at his best. This stage was pretty short, so the team tried to make it hard by giving full gas throughout the stage.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZAyEDl1RxAY[/youtube]
As we got closer to the climb, we had Serge Pauwels, Vlody Gustov, and Philip Deignan driving for Carlos, and unfortunately, Philip took a corner a bit too fast and crashed. It was OK for us, because we still had Serge and Vlody there, but a shame for Philip as we don’t know yet how he’ll recover from that. I think Serge has done a really excellent job. We were surprised about his performance this Giro, but it just proves that young riders can improve so much in such a short time.”
“Further on, it was really up to Carlos to go full gas, and see what he could do. Unfortunately, there were stronger boys today. I sat behind him, and he gave not 100%, but 200%; he tried for his life today, but today there were some people who were better. That’s life, and we have to live with it, but the whole team did a really great job today and we’re very happy.
“We’re really very happy with the Giro so far. Good teamwork, good performances, two stage wins, and still a couple of days to go. We know what we’ve started with and where we want to finish. We’d like to give Carlos a chance to get back on the podium in two days. Thursday, we’ll sit back and not spend too much energy, that way we can go after a third stage victory on Friday at the last mountain top finish on Vesuvio.” said Jean Paul Van Poppel last night.
1 Denis Menchov (Rus) Rabobank 72.28.24
2 Danilo Di Luca (Ita) LPR Brakes – Farnese Vini 0.26
3 Franco Pellizotti (Ita) Liquigas 2.00
4 Ivan Basso (Ita) Liquigas 3.28
5 Carlos Sastre (Spa) Cervelo Test Team 3.30
6 Levi Leipheimer (USA) Astana 4.32
7 Michael Rogers (Aus) Team Columbia – Highroad 7.05
8 Stefano Garzelli (Ita) Acqua & Sapone – Caffe Mokambo 8.03