Roman Kreuziger – Unofficial
“It was extremely tough today. When Alberto went on the attack on the first climb, the peloton literally fell apart. Everybody was afraid of the next move and those teams that had riders in the GC organized a chase not to allow Alberto gain too much time. I ended up in a small group that continued at a brisk pace. The worst was the first climb shortly after the start. The riders in my group were pushing hard not to finish outside the time cut-off but we didn’t make it, anyway. The time limit was set at 25:07 and we arrived at the finish 20 seconds later. But I guess the judges will tolerate it like they did on Thursday,” Roman described.Roman predicts that Evans will come out of this race as the overall winner. “If he pulls off his regular performance, he will give Andy one and half minute. It also depends on whether he will handle the pressure,” he calculated.He also made a point about Contador´s performance. “Yesterday he had a crisis. Today he did his best to come back and showed that he is a true champion. He was riding within his limits but, obviously, he is also very exhausted.”Stage 19 (Modane Valfréjus-L Alpe d Huez, 109.5 km): 1st Rolland (Fra) 3:13:25, 2nd S. Sánchez (Spa) +14, 3rd Contador (Spa) +23, 4th P. Velits (Svk), 5th Evans (Aus), 6th De Gendt (Bel), 7th Cunego (Ita), 8th F. Schleck (Lux), 9th A. Schleck (Lux) +57, … 132nd Kreuziger (Cze) +25:27.
