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Posts Tagged ‘Murcia’

De Tirreno-Adriatico start vandaag onder ongekend koude weersomstandigheden. De organisatie vertrouwt er echter op dat de aanwezige sneeuw vandaag verdwijnt in de omgeving van startplaats Livorno. Met temperaturen onder nul viel het veel ploegen al zwaar om naar de Italiaanse startlocatie af te reizen, Robert Gesink van Rabobank was uren extra onderweg van zijn woonplaats Girona (Spanje), van waaruit hij nauwelijks het vliegveld wist te bereiken. Teams en bussen van Rabobank en andere ploegen arriveren vandaag net op tijd of net te laat vanuit Spanje, onderweg vanuit de Ronde van Murcia. Organisator RCS probeerde gisteren op een persconferentie de gemoederen te sussen. ,,Een afgelasting zit er niet in, omdat het dooien zal op woensdag en we geen klimmetjes op hoeven. Eventueel zullen we het aantal kilometers inperken, als de omstandigheden te slecht zijn'' zo verklaarde men.

MADRID, March 8, 2010 (AFP) – Seven-time Tour of France winner Lance Armstrong believes, at 38, he has little chance of beating arch-rival Alberto Contador of Spain to win an eighth title this year.

“It would be very difficult. I’m 38, Alberto is 27 and he’s improving every year. I know it, people know it, Alberto knows it,” he told Spanish newspaper El Pais.

Armstrong and Contador were part of the same Astana team in 2009, but their relationship was tense with the American finishing third overall behind winner Contador. Armstrong later left for the US team RadioShack.

This weekend he finished seventh in Spain’s Tour of Murcia, won by Czech Frantisek Rabon.

But the Texan, whose main objective this year is the Tour de France in July, told El Pais he felt he was a “better cyclist” now than in 2009, when he returned to the sport after a four-year absence.

Contador was Tour de France champion in 2007 and 2009.

07-Mar-2010: Theo Bos (NED) won his second race of the season today in the final 121 kilometre stage to Murcia. The Cervélo TestTeam rider was faster than Graeme Brown (AUS – Rabobank) and Daniel Schorn (AUS-Team NetApp) in the sprint. Frantisek Rabon (CZE – HTC-Columbia) finished safely in the peloton on this final flat stage to win the Tour of Murcia.

“The race was a short stage, only 121.1 kilometres with both the start and finish in Murcia,” said Marcello Alabsini, sports director. “There was just a small climb in the course but it was not too hard. Oscar Pujol (ESP) and Philip Deignan (IRL) were pretty active today and involved in several of the stages’ breakaways. It seemed that the break in the last three kilometres, with Philip Deignan could make it to the finish line. But Rabobank worked pretty hard to bring that group back. We tried to bring Theo into the best position and the team did it very well. In the final we brought him to the right position in the front.”

“There was one second category climb in the stage of today and I had to pass that one,” said Theo Bos. “As we expected Rabobank set the tempo in the front but my teammates stayed around me providing perfect support. It was really a fast final and that is really good for me. Brown was in my wheel and I knew that I had to watch him. With 300 meters to go I opened the sprint and saw Brown coming out of my wheel. When he tried to pass me I accelerated and he was not able to pass me and came back in my wheel. The team did a great job for me today. Philip Deignan was in the breakaway and that was perfect for us because Rabobank had to chase him. Stefan Denifl stayed with me in the final and brought me into a perfect position. Today I had my best legs of the week and I felt a big change today. The first stage I messed up a little bit because I was too far back in the peloton in an important moment in the race so I wanted to make something good today, and I did.”

Stage 5 : Murcia – Murcia (121.1 km)
1. Theo Bos (NED – Cervélo TestTeam) 2.43:35
2. Graeme Brown (AUS – Rabobank) s.t.
3. Daniel Schorn (AUT – Team NetApp) s.t.
4. Valentin Iglinskiy (KAZ – Astana) s.t.
5. Henning Bommel (GER – German National Team) s.t.

In de schaduw van Parijs-Nice (Boom), Murcia (Bos) en West-Vlaanderen (Boeckmans) boekte de 28-jarige Fransman Benoît Daeninck namens het Continental Team Roubaix-Lille Métropole een overwinning in de 46e editie van de Franse voorjaarskoers GP Lillers (UCI 1.2). Hij ging zijn landgenoten Bideau en Dion in de strijd om de podiumplaatsen 1 tot en met 3 vooraf. (Foto: Daniel Schamps) 1. Benoît Daeninck (Roubaix-Lille Métropole) 2. Jean-Marc Bideau (Bretagne-Schuller) 3. Renaud Dion (Roubaix-Lille Métropole) 4. Cédric Pineau (Roubaix-Lille Métropole) 5. Arnaud Molmy (Roubaix-Lille Métropole)

Columbia-HTC rider Frantisek Rabon has clinched the overall victory of the Tour of Murcia, Spain, following a trouble-free final stage on Sunday.

Rabon had taken the lead thanks to his spectacular time trial victory on Saturday. HTC-Columbia then kept the race well under control in Sunday's 121.1 kilometre stage from Redyser to Murcia, won by Holland's Theo Bos.

The five-day Tour of Murcia is Rabon's first ever stage race victory as a professional, and the 26-year-old took it with a 38 second advantage over Russia's Denis Menchov, second overall, and a 53 second on third-placed British rider Bradley Wiggins.

"The first 40 kilometres of the final stage, before the one big climb of the day, were a bit crazy with attacks going everywhere. But afterwards we kept it all under control," said HTC-Columbia's sports director for the race, Tristan Hoffman.

"At one point there was a break of nine riders, with one of them a potential threat because he was less than three minutes behind Frankie [Rabon] on the overall. Fortunately, he dropped out of the break and we combined with the sprinters' teams to close things down."

"Frankie's always been a great time triallist, but now he's getting much better on the climbs, too, so we weren't too worried."

The HTC-Columbia director singled out "all the young guys on our team, who were really nervous  but also really motivated about keeping the breaks under control. What we had to do we did well."