Director’s report from Matt White:
It was the longest stage of the tour. The idea for this tour was two options — Wiggo for the overall and stage wins for Tyler. We’ve been playing our cards well so far.
Today we wanted to control the race and play it smart. We had Cozza and Ricardo van der Velde doing the work eary, and in the final it was Svein Tuft and Cj [Chris Sutton.] Svein was crucial today keeping it together for Tyler. It’s not in the results, but there were 70 guys for the sprint and Tyler beat him all!
We have a pretty young team here — we planned on bringing Vande Velde and Maaskant, but b/c of the crashes in Vattenfall we had to bring Ricardo and Huub. They are going to end the tour in a body bag but when someone starts winning it helps the morale and they will go really deep.
It’s a mini-Amstel Gold tomorrow — not nearly as hard but over much of the same parcours — then a dead flat day Monday. Monday will be pretty uneventful with another bunch sprint, then the time trial. so today was the last day anyone can do anything.
The last stage on Tuesday is a short TT. I think the man to beat overall is Boassen-Hagen, he’s the only one that can TT and pick up time bonuses. He’s a national champ too. Nibali picked up a little time bonus. Wiggo can do it too, but it’s only 13km long — if it was 25-30km he would certainly win it as he is one of the worlds best time trialists. If we get through tomorrow the same as we are now, he can certainly have a shot.
|
Team Garmin-Slipstream, stage 5 1. Tyler Farrar 5h27.01 31. Bradley Wiggins 83. Svein Tuft +0.28 84. Chris Sutton +0.31 95. Huub Duyn +17.09 150. Ricardo van der Velde +22.08 151. Steven Cozza |
Team Garmin-Slipstream, GC 1. Tyler Farrar 17h51.13 7. Bradley Wiggins +0.37 81. Chris Sutton +11.23 102. Svein Tuft +21.25 132. Huub Duyn +38.22 148. Ricardo van der Velde +43.05 150. Steven Cozza +43.07 |
