Belgian hits twice in convincing performance against the clock
Maxime Monfort of the HTC Columbia squad won the time trial in the Tour of Bavaria, ahead of Lampre’s Adriano Malori and Monfort’s teammate Hayden Roulsten. With his win by 12 seconds over Malori, Monfort also took over the race lead from Ruben Perez Moreno (Euskaltel Euskadi)
Monfort, the reigning Belgian national time trial champion, was surprised but happy with the result. “I haven’t raced for five weeks, so I wasn’t expecting my form to be this good. But in each stage of the race so far I’ve been feeling a little bit better and today I felt the best. It was a very hilly course, with two big climbs with steady gradients of between five and ten percent, and that suited me too.”
Monfort was able to use Roulsten as a reference point for maintaining his steady pace over the parcours. “Hayden had set the best provisional time, and as I was beating his times all the way through, I knew I was on the right track. I passed two guys who had started ahead of me as well, and that’s always something that gives you extra motivation.”
Now in the overall lead, Monfort wants to try to stay in control of the race on the closing stage Sunday. “Tomorrow’s stage is really flat and hopefully it should end in a bunch sprint. I haven’t got much of a margin, just 12 seconds on Malori, and I haven’t won a stage race since 2004, so the team and I will be giving it 100 percent to try to get this win.”
Previous leader Perez Moreno was almost two minutes slower and lost his Yellow jersey. Last year’s winner Christian Knees finished more than a minute behind, unable to repeat a victory for his Milram team.
The final stage tomorrow needs to decide the outcome, betwen Berching and Fürstenfeldbruck, 157km.
Stage results
1. Maxime Monfort (THR) 36:04
2. Adriano Malori (LAM) 36:16
3. Hayden Roulsten (THR) 36:52
Overall results after stage 4
1. Maxime Monfort (THR)
2. Adriano Malori (LAM) at 0’12