Moving up to fifth place overall

“It was a completely different scenario that we had imagined. Since Froome was isolated in the leading group, everybody tried to put the pressure on to cut him off from his teammates. The pace was kept really high and it was very hard today. We climbed almost 4000m,” Roman said after the ninth stage. None of the favorites was able to make use of that unexpected situation, so Froome crossed the finish line along with his main rivals. “At the end we were all at the same level. We were riding so fast all day long that none of the favorites had anything left to go on an attack,” he revealed. Having attacked on the final ascent, Dan Martin beat his breakaway companion Fuglsang in a two-man sprint. “We were comfortably sitting in that group and we were not interested in chasing those guys back. They are both quite strong riders but, on the other hand, they should not pose a threat in the GC,” Roman explained. He was surprised to see that the Sky team had one of their bad days. “The good thing for us is that Richie Porte wasn’t in that group and it was nice that there could be three of us there. We have a really strong team. Too bad that we lost Benji Noval today, he called it quits.” Roman has moved up to fifth place overall, Alberto Contador is sitting right behind him. “I´m quite happy with the way we´ve survived those nine days. Tomorrow we will have to take a proper rest, do our best in the time trial and then get ready for the hard Sunday´s stage. We will also have to save as much energy as possible in those flat stages because the final week is going to be really grueling,” added Roman on his way to the airport.