Tour of Murcia

Stage 5: Redyser to Murcia, 121km/75mi

By Cathy Mehl

All in all it was a successful week in Spain for Team RadioShack, placing two riders in the top ten and 4 in the top 20, plus securing second place for the Teams classification.  Andreas Klöden was the best-placed Team rider in 4^th place at 57-seconds behind race winner Frantisek Rabon of HTC-Columbia while teammate Lance Armstrong held 7^th in his first European race of the season.  Sunday’s concluding flat stage was won by Theo Bos (Cervelo Test Team), holding off Graeme Brown (Rabobank) and Daniel Schorn (Team Net App) for the group sprint win.  Joining Rabon on the podium were Denis Menchov (Rabobank) and Bradley Wiggins (Team Sky) for second and 3^rd.  

After 20km of racing nine riders slipped away to establish an advantage of more than two minutes, but lack of cooperation in the group eventually left only three survivors:  Philip Deignan (Cervelo), Oleg Chuzhda (Caja Rural) and Alexandre Blain (Endura). HTC-Columbia rode to protect the race lead for Rabon after his stunning win in Saturday’s time trial.  With a comfortable margin of 33-seconds at the start of the stage, the Czech rider was almost assured of the overall victory.  A late puncture for Menchov was the only real drama on the day, but his teammates brought him back and the peloton was all together with 3km to go.   In a fast run to the line, Bos had Brown on his wheel and opened up his sprint with 300 meters to go, taking the win over the Aussie rider.

Racing action continues all week for Team RadioShack with the 8-day Paris-Nice “Race to the Sun” which opened today with a Prologue.

Top Ten Results

1        Theo Bos (Ned) Cervélo TestTeam  2:43:35        

2        Graeme Brown (Aus) Rabobank                  

3        Daniel Schorn (Aut) Team Netapp              

4        Valentin Iglinskiy (Kaz) Astana                   

5        Henning Bommel (Ger) German National Team            

6        Russell Downing (GBr) Team Sky               

7        Roger Kluge (Ger) Team Milram                 

8        Andreas Schillinger (Ger) Team Netapp                

9        Manuel Anton (Spa) Spanish National Team                 

10      Ian Wilkilson (GBr) Endura Racing

 

Team RadioShack on Stage 5

40      Andreas Klöden (Ger)

45      Daryl Impey (RSA)

59      Gregory Rast (Swi)

65      Lance Armstrong (USA)

73      Haimar Zubeldia (Spa)

81      Jason McCartney (USA)                    

82      José Luis Rubiera (Spa)

 

Final General Classification

1        Frantisek Rabon (Cze) Team HTC - Columbia    16:01:24      

2        Denis Menchov (Rus) Rabobank      0:00:38        

3        Bradley Wiggins (GBr) Team Sky    0:00:53        

4        Andreas Klöden (Ger) Team Radioshack   0:00:57        

5        Josep Jufre (Spa) Astana        0:01:21        

6        Stef Clement (Ned) Rabobank          0:01:23        

7        Lance Armstrong (USA) Team Radioshack                    

8        Pieter Weening (Ned) Rabobank       0:01:41        

9        Luke Roberts (Aus) Team Milram    0:01:42        

10      Tomasz Marczynski (Pol) CCC Polsat Polkowice         0:01:59

 

Team RadioShack on Final General Classification

16      Haimar Zubeldia (Spa) 0:02:30

20      José Luis Rubiera (Spa) 0:02:32

44      Daryl Impey (RSA) 0:13:16

50      Gregory Rast (Swi) 0:16:00

63      Jason McCartney (USA) 0:27:56     

Photo courtesy of Graham Watson