Hesjedal finishes 7th in le Tour
Canadian Ryder Hesjedal fought passionately through the time trial stage 19 despite apparently not doing very well. His 52nd place finish, 6:40 behind the stage winner Fabian Cancellara, may not have seemed a great result at the time, but it bumped him up to a 7th place standing overall to defend in Paris.
"Seven is a nice number, I'll take it," Hesjedal said with a smile. "That was a really hard time trial. I didn't feel good at all. I suffered through the whole thing and that's a long time to be out there when you're not feeling good. It doesn't get much harder than that at the end of a Grand Tour."
The Garmin-Transitions rider defended it successfully in stage 20 to Paris, the 7th best contender in the 2010 Tour de France. He had been thrust into the limelight when his team leader Christian Vande Velde crashed out of the race when he fractured his ribs in the second stage. Hesjedal took over as the leader of Team Garmin, holding top-ten standings for 12 of the Tour’s 20 stages, including 3rd place overall in stage 7.
"That morning when Christian didn't start, the guys were hurt,” explained Hesjedal. “It's bad when you feel bad because you didn’t crash with your teammates and so I just wanted to go on the attack and race good. Ever since stage three, I wanted to stay high up in the race and show myself and show the team well. That's what I continued to do today."
The time-trial had the unexpected complication of a strong head wind at the end of the race – an obstacle which hurt Joaquin Rodriguez more than it did the leader of Team Garmin. The Spaniard finished 3:37 behind Hesjedal and fell to 8th place overall behind the Canadian, who’s team sported t-shirts which had ‘O Hesjedal’ emblazoned over a maple leaf.
"With the wind, it's difficult to judge your speed and you feel like you're going nowhere. You've just got to concentrate and suffer," said Hesjedal. "My Tour de France has been phenomenal. If anyone had said I'd be riding into Paris in the top ten, I would have said:' that's a nice idea' but now it's reality."
The Garmin team bus parked in the Place de la Concorde, near the finish line of the Tour de France, was a place of celebration for the team, its Canadian leader, and his girlfriend. The tough Victoria, BC native finished the Tour 10:15 behind the victor Alberto Contador and achieved an enormous personal victory.
"This is only my third Tour. The first one is obviously overwhelming and you can never duplicate that. The second was just a relief of getting back and both times we had great rides as a team and had riders in the top five. This time for me to come back and ride as I did and finish in this position, it's really a dream come true."
The rider maintained the spirit and the aggressive optimism required to succeed in such a demanding event, physically and mentally. Attitude is as important as skill in contributing to a victory in the most difficult parts of the most difficult bicycle race, but Hesjedal will return home proud and inspired, having pushed his own boundaries and learned was he is really capable of.
"It's real sweet to finish the Tour de France on the Champs-Élysées, knowing you're seventh overall," he told Cyclingnews. "It's been an unbelievable Tour. Now I'm going to enjoy it as much as possible. I was pretty tired after the time trial, physically and mentally, so I didn't really celebrate. We're going to celebrate tonight though.”
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