Great fight by Jens Voigt
[13.08 16:50] Jens Voigt defended his yellow jersey tooth and nail in the Deutschland Tour when an attack towards the end of the 184-kilometre fourth stage threatened the German's overall lead. But with Chris Anker Sørensen's help, the loss to the three breakaways was successfully limited to just a few seconds, so the overall lead remains with the Team-CSC rider.
Six riders broke away on the last climb with 15 kilometres to go. Among them was the eventual winner of the stage, Damiano Cunego (Lampre), who finished with Davide Rebellin (Gerolsteiner) and David Lopez (Caisse d'Epargne). These three managed to shake off Levi Leipheimer (Discovery Channel) and Robert Gesink (Rabobank) while the sixth man in the breakaway, Rigoberto Uran (Unibet), was unlucky and took a fall.
Behind the breakaways, Jens Voigt had to work really hard to avoid losing too much time on the climb itself and then also on the downward slope and the flat section into the finish. Fortunately Chris Anker Sørensen came up through a field of about 30 riders at the end, so the young Dane was able to help his team captain the last 3–4 kilometres to the finish. The two CSC-riders' work together, and that of one or two other riders, also meant that Leipheimer and Gessink were overtaken.
"We managed to keep the jersey, but of course it took some effort. The climb was just a little too steep for me to keep up with the leaders, so I had to find my own maximum tempo,” explained Voigt after the stage.
In normal circumstances, Voigt would probably have received help from Andy Schleck in a finish like this, but the young Luxemburger was taken ill during the night and although he lined up for the start of the stage, he was soon forced to accept that he would not be able to complete the stage. Fabian Cancellara also abandoned the race after his hard-working performance in both the second and third stages, so that he can prepare for the Vattenfall Cyclassics on Sunday.
On the other hand, young Chris Anker Sørensen won a couple of nice extra “prizes” as a result of his fine piece of work. For he is now in overall second place and can also wear the white jersey in the next stage, taking over as best young rider from Andy Schleck.
"Both of them did really well, but it was incredibly tough. The climb was only listed as category two, but it was much harder than the two category one climbs yesterday. And on top of that it came after an extremely hard-ridden stage. The first 70 kilometres was a madly fast cycle race. The average speed was 50 km/h, and our riders were in there all the time, so they all deserve praise. It was a shame about Andy. He threw up and had stomach ache yesterday, so he was simply not up to it today. We don't know exactly what is wrong with him, but he'll probably be all right in a day or two," said sports director, Kim Andersen.
Singen -> Sonthofen, 184km; Results |
