Tour de France Team Talk Stage 4

Stefan Schumacher (Gerolsoteiner) wins the 29 kilometre time trial out and back from Cholet to take over the lead of the race. - report

Kim Kirchen was very pleased with his ride crediting Team Director Rolf Aldag for the motivation. “I felt really good today and I had Rolf in my ear giving me very good information. It was really motivating.”

“I was actually a little surprised at how well I rode in the time trial,” he added. “I felt great on the bike and the crowds along the roads really helped me keep focussed.”

Columbia finished not only with Kirchen in second, but also George Hincapie in ninth and Lövkvist in eleventh.

Team Owner Bob Stapleton was again pleased with the way all of the riders are riding. “It was another solid team performance,” he said. “It was our fourth top five performance in three days. We’re particularly proud of taking both the green and the white jersey’s. The great teamwork and the performances position us well as the race continues.”

Damiano Cungeo and his Lampre team were pleased the his performance in relation to the main race contenders was in the right ball park.

Comparison with time trial specialists are - Evans (4th with 58” on Cunego) and Menchov (6th with 52” on Cunego), while Andy Schleck is at 3” from Cunego, Valverde at 8”, Sastre at 17” and Frank Schleck at 48”. Bruseghin recorder the 25th time, at 16” from Cunego.

In the overall standing, led by new yellow jersey Schumacher, Cunego is 16th at 1’26”. “Cholet time trial was important challenge and I approached it with concentration: I’m very satisfied – Cunego said – My time trial was good, even if compared to the one of time trial specialists: only 1’ lost from Evans and 8” better that Valverde is a positive thing that confirmed my feelings of the last two days”

Fabian Cancellara had made no secret of the fact that he had hoped to win this stage and taking the Yellow Jersey so he was not satisfied with his fifth place at all.

"I wasn't having a good day today – already from the start I didn't feel one hundred percent. I never really found a good rhythm out there and of course I'm very disappointed, but I'll have to look ahead and consider what went wrong and try and improve on that," said Cancellara after the stage.

Team owner Bjarne Riis said - "Of course we'd hoped that he'd win today's stage because he's the world champion in this discipline. He didn't do badly either but today just wasn't his day. You can't win them all and you can't expect people to be perfect every single time so we're ok about this," said Bjarne Riis after the stage.

Commentating on Carlos Sastre, Riis said - "Carlos did very well in the time trial and lost less than I'd expected to the other GC riders. Andy also did well and only lost a minute to Cadel Evans (Silence-Lotto.) Fränk dropped back a bit, but we expected that. All in all I think our guys did a good job today and of course we mustn't forget to mention Jens' seventh place," said Bjarne Riis.

Stefan Schumacher won the stage - . "I refused to believe it right up until the end. It was damn tight. I kept re-calculating to see whether my lead would suffice - and I was pretty nervous", "I dreamt of a stage victory and of the Yellow Jersey. Both of these are now reality. Unbelievable."

"We sat in the team bus very tensely counting the seconds. Once it was clear that the stage victory was ours, it still remained to be seen who was going to take the Yellow Jersey. And it was enough. Simply excellent, sensational", said Christian Henn (Team DS

Paolo Longo Borghini placed 4th yesterday in Nantes and he said - "DS Alberto Volpi told me I could have a great opportunity today and of course I have understood he was right. I'm a little bit disappointed but I was tired in the end".

Mauricio Soler managed to race today in spite of the pain from his fractured triquetrum.

Joint team leader, Christian Knees, was 35th (+1’53) - “I wasn’t able to find my rhythm quite as fast as I had hoped,” “It was a very hilly course. My climbing was good, but I had some trouble descending. Considering I had a light fever last night, I should be satisfied. I didn’t lose a lot of time"

Having crashed out on stage three, Angel Gómez is flying back to Spain tomorrow, in order to recover from the fracture of his right hipbone.

Juanjo Cobo said - "I don´t know why I was so slow. I´d been feeling OK but today it wasn´t the case. My heartbeat was 160, and you can´t give it the full gas at that pace. I didn´t feel comfortable on my bike, so my performance was less than perfect. I hope it´s just a bad day, my only bad day in this Tour. I know I´m in good shape. We´ll see what happens in the upcoming stages..."

Abandons

Herve Duclos Lassalle, Cofidis - stage 1
Angel Gomez, Saunier Duval - stage 3

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