Team Milram could shine in the mountains
With Team Milram standing at 20th in the team ranking, and its highest ranking individual at 45th, it seems the Team is already out of the Tour de France for 2010. But with the first mountain stage coming up on Sunday, the tide of this so-far-flat Tour could shift radically.
Team manager Gerry van Gerwen told VeloNation that Milram will focus on stage wins rather than the yellow jersey at the Tour this year, the same strategy employed by Team HTC Columbia with Mark Cavendish. Team leader Linus Gerdemann is leading Milram's charge to Paris.
Gerdeman placed 16th overall at this year’s Giro d’Italia and achieved stage wins at the Vuelta a Mallorca and Tirreno-Adriatico, as well as one stage win in the 2007 Tour de France, where he also wore the yellow jersey for one stage after that.
Despite Milram's strategy, Gerdemann, who placed 10th in the prologue, is not such a long-shot as a top contender. If he picks up a couple stage wins and puts his energy toward the general classification, the team would surely shift its focus to send him for the yellow jersey. But he must not duplicate his crash in the second stage.
“Two crashes with tire damage threw me back three kilometers before the finish. Up until then I could stay up with the others and was doing well. Looking back at the results of the stage, I had the chance to improve myself in the general rankings. That is irritating.”
Gerdemann is probably the most under-the-radar hopeful. His only stage win at the Tour so far occurred in the mountains, as did his third stage victory at the Vuelta a Mallorca this year. This means there’s still hope for the 2010 Tour, since its first mountain stage, the eighth, won’t be until Sunday, and will be opening up the Tour to many more mountain stages, including three summit finishes.
If Gerdemann doesn’t make an appearance in the general classification by the eighth stage, he'll certainly stay with the announced strategy of stage wins. If the German is able to hang on with the leaders in the mountain, however, he could have a chance at the top ten.
“Of course it is too bad that Linus Gerdemann had so much bad luck,” said manager Gerry van Gerwen. “He lost important time because of it. Roger Kluge rode an impressive stage. He lacked a bit of strength at the end. All in all, we can be happy that all our riders stayed more or less healthy. That is the most important thing.”
“I had hoped to be in a group in order to avoid all the confusion and to look for my chance,” said teammate and Tour de France debutant Roger Kluge. “After the first cobblestone section, the stage was over for us escapees. There was an unbelievable atmosphere along the course.”
In 2008, Team Milram moved its home base from Italy to Germany, shifted its focus to the Grand Tours and German tours, and instigated an overt anti-doping stance. This coincided with the departure of its leading riders: Erik Zabel retired at the end of 2008, and Alessandro Petacchi, winner of the first and fourth stages of the 2010 Tour, was fired after a doping controversy.
When he tested positive for the asthma drug salbutamol, he was forced to miss the 2007 Tour de France. The Italian Cycling Federation ruled that the overuse of salbutamol was likely accidental, but ruled that Petacchi has not “exercised utmost caution.” While Petacchi maintained that he had done no wrong, the controversy cause him to be fired by Team Milram. He now rides for Lampre-Farnese.
The fifth stage of the Tour will again go to the sprinters. Staring in Epernay, the capital of Champagne, the 187.5 km flat stage will finish in Montargis. The race will be decided by a final sprint in Montargis, after up to three intermediate, point-making sprints along the route.
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