Tour de France Team Talk Stage 11

Kurt-Asle Arvesen won the sprint from a group that went clear .- report

"A bad, bad day shocked Team Barloworld and confirmed how unlucky this Tour de France is for the squad", so say the team and who could disagree with them?

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In the morning the team received the news that Moisès Dueñas had returned a non-negative sample after the time trial in Cholet. Such was the prelude of an awful day that continued with further misadventures during the race, when Paolo Longo Borghini and Felix Cardenas pulled out. After Mauricio Soler's abandon, the team is strongly decimated and just five riders remain in the race. "We have to go on and honour the race anyway", Alberto Volpi (DS) stated.

Longo Borghini and Cardenas were involved in the same crash, just after the feeding zone, but Longo Borghini's injury immediately appeared the most serious: in fact the Italian rider suffered a fracture to his right collarbone. Longo Borghini got back on his bike, but was forced to withdrawal at 50 km to go, because of pains to his left thigh.

Alessandro Ballan featured in the big break of the day and the final sprint - “What a pity! All was perfect, but I found on my way a fast rider such Arvesen”.

“At 3 km to go, when Arvesen and Elmiger took an advantage on the other attackers, I understood that it was the right move and so I gave my best to rejoin the two riders. When I was with them, I had to recover my energy, because I had no none left I could not cover the last bend in a faster way and so I started the sprint with no advantage. I feel good and I will try to attack again”.

Kurt-Asle Arvesen secured himself his first Tour de France stage victory, which was also Team CSC Saxo Bank's first 2008 Tour win.

Arvesen said - "It was absolutely fantastic! It's probably my biggest victory ever. I'm extremely happy right now."

"The beginning was actually quite tough but Jens did a tremendous job and I finally made a break. At the end I just had really good legs and insisted on not letting this opportunity pass me by," continued Arvesen.

Rider Jesús del Nero said of stage 11 - "It´s a pity that we couldn't get into the definitive breakaway after two nice attempts by De la Fuente and myself.

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Our goal was being part of the breakaway and preventing other teams -above all, CSC- from having more riders than ourselves in the leading bunch, but we couldn´t make it. When the breakaway was in its early stages, Voigt and Cancellara took off whenever we gave it a try. In the end there were just seven of us; if you take the leaders out, it boiled down to four, and it wasn´t enough.

I´m satisfied with my performance in this Tour so far. It´s my first Grand Tour, and I´m getting better by the day, although I know I´ll begin to feel increasingly tired. I hope I can save some strength for the Alps, so that I can assist our leaders. For the time being, the strategy is to find our place in breakaways."

Marco Velo finished in tenth position after featuring in the break.

"Until ten kilometres to go, I was absolutely satisfied with how the stage went for us,“ said Gerry van Gerwen, General Manager." "We were represented in the escape group with Marco Velo. He’s a rider that gets on well over the mountains. Of course, I hoped that his sprint capacities would offer us something better than a tenth placing. Unfortunately, he lacked a bit of power in the finale to achieve a better result.“

The team report because there was no immediate danger for Cadel Evans from the break, that all the riders had to do was to keep a regular tempo.

Oscar Pereiro launched an attack from the yellow jersey group reminiscent of his 2006 Tour winning move, but this time it came to nothing.

“There Caisse d’Epargne rider going with each breakaway at the beginning of the stage but unfortunately Txente (García Acosta) just missed the good one. As for me I attacked in the first category hill hoping that some other riders would follow and come with me. During the rest day I said that my intention was to try something in the following stages each time there is an opportunity because that is my form of racing. Today it did not work: on the flat with front wind and the CSC riders controlling the bunch I had no possibility but I will try again and again”.

Fabian Wegmann was a member of the breakaway group. "I had major ambitions. And things went very well, I felt excellent. But in the finale there is always a measure of luck involved and I'm afraid I didn't place my bets ideally. One simply can't give chase after every attack."

Team Manager Hans-Michael Holczer said - "No one wanted to risk reaching the home stretch with him." "Again we took part in the action at the front.

Herve Duclos Lassalle, Cofidis - stage 1 - crash
Angel Gomez, Saunier Duval - stage 3 - crash
Maurico Soler, Barloworld - stage 5 - injuries from an earlier crash
Aurelien Passeron, Saunier Duval - stage 6 - failed to start (Hit a spectator the previous day)
Magnus Backstedt, Garmin Chipotle - stage 7 - outside time limit
Lilian Jegou, FD Jeux - stage 7 - crash
Christophe Moreau, Agritubel - stage 7, bad back
John Gadret, AG2R - stage 7
Mauro Facci, Quickstep, - stage 7
Manuel Beltran, Liquigas - stage 7 - withdrawn before start after positive dope test
Yury Trofimov Bouyges Telecom - stage 10 - withdrawn before start
Paulo Longo Borghini, Barloworld - stage 11 - crash
Felix Cardenas, Barloworld - stage 11 - crash
Moises Duenas Nevado, Barloworld - stage 11 - withdrawn before start after positive dope test

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