This afternoon, the last stage of the Rhône Alpes Isère Tour 2011 was won by Thomas Vedel Kvist of the Glud & Marstrand team, who beat the rider who was continuously attacking in this race, Jérémy Roy (FDJ), in the sprint.
He and overall winner Sylvain Georges commented on this last stage and their victories.
After the finish, Thomas Vedel Kvist told us how this stage developed for him:
I was in the early breakaway but I couldn't really go full speed because there were riders who could get over our leader (Lasse Bochmann) in the general classification. In the last first category climb, a new breakaway was formed and that's when Jérémy Roy came up. Than there was two guys who could go past us in the general classification so I still couldn't go full speed.
When I saw the peloton came closer I thought I could go for the stage victory. Than I attacked and I went with Jérémy Roy and 1.5 kilometers from the finish I stayed in his wheel and I went past him in the sprint.
In a sprint like this one, where you have to accelerate from not too much speed, 30/40 kilometers an hour, that's the best sprint for me. I'm not a sprinter but I usually finish in a small group!
The rider who was still part of the Quick Step last year, also explained why he's no longer part of that team and had to take a step back: I had some injuries. The first year I had a mononucleosis and a broken collarbone and the next year I had some knee problems during 3 months so I couldn't really train. Last year I haven't been able to do many races with my knee problems. It was early in the season, in January/February/March but I did only 40/50 races with the team, they didn't get me to more races.
I'd definitely want to get back at that level and now I already have two UCI wins (hier and in the 2nd stage of the Tour de Normandie) I think it's going the right way.
If you want to listen to this interview, simply click the play button in below's podcast!
First of all he describes today's stage between Saint-Maurice l'Exil and Charvieu-Chavagneux:
This stage was made up of three parts for me. In the first part I was really scared to lose my jersey because there were many break aways and no one really seemed to be willing to simply give it away to us. I already saw my yellow jersey slipping away from me again.
The second part was more of a waiting phase. My colleagues did the hard work there, together with some other teams, to control the gap of the break away. And the last part was when we arrived on the local circuit. At about 20 kilometers from the finish I began to think: "unless something really bad happens, you've got it". This last part thus had me in the longest 20 kilometers of my life (lol) !
The guys really did a great job, they've worked hard. At the end, the sprinters teams fortunately came up to help us because when FDJ started to attack in the last climb, the peloton broke apart. I thus had a hard time and when Maxime (Médérel) came back I was thinking "yoopi, I've got some help!" and the sprinters teams than did their part of the job, just like the team of the rider who's third in the general classification and that thus helped me quite a lot. At 20 kilometers from the finish I was thus a bit more relaxed.
This is the best victory in my whole career, and that for BigMat, in my first year with the pros. I'm really happy and this is the reward for all the work the team has done. They've been riding like crazy men to help for four days already. Even though we were theoretically in a worse position since we had one guy less than the others, this jersey was taken thanks to the whole team anyway.
Yesterday I didn't really celebrate my victory. We didn't open a bottle because I didn't want it to bring me bad luck. On Friday I lost the jersey, as I said I never keep it more than 3 days so out of superstition I didn't go crazy yesterday and concentrated on today and on how I could keep this jersey. We knew that today would be toughest stage for us, not because of the profile but because the different teams wanted to take the stage and some probably even the overall win.
I probably won't celebrate it tonight either because I'm going on directly to the Circuit de Lorraine so I'm leaving for the north tonight. I think I'll celebrate it with some friends during the break afterwards and before the training camp at the end of May.
If you want to listen to this interview, simply click the play button in below's podcast!
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this publication is published in: Rhône Alpes Isère Tour
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