It was brutal!

“The stage was 229km long but if we count in the transfer down to the team bus it was 250km in all. I had the total time on bike of 8:20. The riders from the grupetto finished the stage after 9 hours of riding. I had never spent such a long  time on the bike in one day before. On top of that, we climbed 6000m, which was much worse than the length of the stage. I had climbed around 4800m before,” he described.“The pressure was on right from the beginning, the stage was really tough. The climbs suited me better than yesterday because they weren’t so steep, except for the last one. I was on my limit with 1km to go, so I had trouble making it to the finish. I wasn’t able to get off my bike at the finish but all in all, I can be happy. Those who finished ahead of me were simply better than me. The time loss wasn’t so big and we will see what happens next. I remain positive and I know that I can move up in the GC but now I really look forward to the rest day because I´m done,” Roman admitted.He was pleased with the team work. “The guys helped me a lot but everyone was riding on his own at the end. Too bad Masciarelli had strained his muscle in Austria. He was going for a raincoat when somebody opened a car door in front of him and hit his leg. He is suffering a bit now.”Stage 15: 1st Nieve (Spa/Euskaltel) 7:27:14, 2nd Garzelli /Ita/Acqua e Sapone) +1:41, 3rd Contador (Spa/Saxo Bank) +1:51, 4th Scarponi (Ita/Lampre) +1:57, 5th Gadret (Fra/AG2R) +2:28, 6th Ruhano (Ven/Androni) +2:35, 7th Nibali (Ita/Liquigas) +3:34, 8th Rodriguez (Spa/Katusa) +3:34, 9th Roman Kreuziger (Cze/Astana) +5:01, 10th Kruijswijk (Ned/Rabobank) +4:13.Overall standings: 1st Contador 62:14:42, 2nd Scarponi +4:20, 3rd Nibali +5:11, 4th Gadret +6:08, 5th Nieve +7:03, 6th Rujano +8:39, 7th Mensov +8:46, 8th Roman Kreuziger +8:58, 9th Rodriguez +9:20, 10th Arroyo +9:30.