Roman Kreuziger - Team Liquigas

It could have been much worse

Tue July 13, 2010, 18:55

Roman’s result in the Alpine queen stage was not as good he had expected. He crossed the finish line in nineteenth position 3:48 min down on the winner and he is in eleventh place overall, two seconds behind his teammate, Basso.

"I was afraid of the first rest day a bit because it can do anything to your legs. It was a weary performance but it could have been much worse. I got dropped 8 kilometers before the last summit when Schleck and Cotador began to attack. All of a sudden, I couldn’t keep up and I suffered for one kilometer or so. Fortunately for me, I snapped out of it and rode well on the last part of the climb," Roman said. 
"I felt much better on the downhill, I caught Klöden with Vinokurov and we managed to erase a few seconds. I know, of course, that my performance wasn’t ideal today but the Tour is long and anything can happen. It is no such a big deal and in the upcoming days things may turn in my favor,"said the Liquigas rider, not losing his hope. 
 
9th stage (204.5 km): 1st Casar (Fra/FDJ) 5:38:10, 2nd L. Sánchez (Spa/Caisse d Epargne), 3rd Cunego (Ita/Lampre), 4th Moreau (Fra/Caisse d Epargne), 5th Charteau (Fra/Bouygues Telecom), 6th Contador (Spa/Astana), 7th A. Schleck (Lux/Saxo Bank) +2, 8th S. Sánchez (Spa/Euskaltel) +52, ... 15th Basso (Ita/Liquigas) +2:50, 19th Roman Kreuziger (CZE/Liquigas) +3:48.  
Overall: 1st A. Schleck 43:35:41, 2nd Contador +41, 3rd S. Sánchez +2:45, 4th Mensov (Rus/Rabobank) +2:58, 5th Van den Broeck (Bel/Lotto) +3:31, 6th Leipheimer (USA/RadioShack) +3:59, 7. Gesink (Niz./Rabobank) +4:22, 8. L. Sánchez +4:41, 9. Rodiguez (Šp./Kaťuša) +5:08, 10. Basso +5:09, 11. Roman Kreuziger +5:11.

This article is also translated :
Mohlo to dopadnout daleko hůř