Race report from Steven Cozza
Today was good… all I can say is ‘Damn’ and ‘Next time!’
After our break was away for 180km and the chasing peloton was within 30 seconds of us with 18km to go I attacked my three other escapees. I held a 30-second gap and was really going flat out but was caught just minutes from the finish line.
It’s a part of cycling and one day it will work out. I told myself from the start of this race that today was my day so it was nice giving it a go and coming close.
Next time….
Mike Friedman says, “I’ll be watching you…”
Race report from Johnny Weltz
Today was a stage that was appropriate for a bunch sprint, as it was descending from the mountains to sea level. But after 10 km Cozza attacked with 3 other riders — they went clear and built up four minutes!
Inevitably from there of the sprinter’s teams started the chase, and kept them in line — and as we approached the 60km to the finish they wanted them back. But they couldn’t get them as easy as expected so more teams joined the chase.
With 15 km to go the gap was 50 second and Cozza attacked the group as they weren’t working well together. He got away easy and from there towards the finish he went faster and faster! In the end five teams were chaseing him and caught him with 3 km to go.
Just a little and he would easy have won the stage! Dan had a good day stayed covered with his teammates in the bunch the whole day, defending his spot on GC.
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Team Garmin-Slipstream, stage 5 results 1. Nikolay Trusov 4h28.58 19. Martijn Maaskant 28. Christian Meier 34. Daniel Martin 52. Timothy Duggan 65. Trent Lowe 82. Svein Tuft 141. Steven Cozza +3.01 150. Mike Friedman +8.16 |
Team Garmin-Slipstream, GC results 1. Alejandro Valverde 18h18.36 2. Dan Martin +0.15 39. Christian Meier +9.59 59. Timothy Duggan +21.35 91. Trent Lowe +35.19 104. Steven Cozza +40.35 120. Svein Tuft +44.41 131. Martijn Maaskant +47.29 150. Mike Friedman +59.39 |
