Last-minute call up takes 108th, but ahead of Scarponi, Cunego, and Gadret
Fränk Schleck (Radioshack-Nissan) is wading gradually into the waters of the Giro d’Italia, beginning his last-minute assignment as the replacement for the injured Jacob Fuglsang, so he was relatively pleased with his 108th place finish in the opening time trial on Saturday.
His finish, 59 seconds behind winner Taylor Phinney (BMC Racing), puts him roughly near the middle of the primary favourites for the final overall classification. The Lampre-ISD duo of Michele Scarponi and Damiano Cunego, along with last year’s third place finisher John Gadret (Ag2R-La Mondiale) all finished further back of Schleck.
But Schleck faces a deficit of 30 seconds to Ryder Hesjedal (Garmin Barracuda), and 20 seconds or thereabouts to Roman Kreuziger (Astana) and Ivan Basso (Liquigas-Cannondale).
Obviously a single time trial does not a Giro d’Italia make. But the Luxembourg rider was pleased with his ride, given his less than ideal preparation, which he said was especially a factor in the time trial discipline.
“As soon as you go on a time trial bike you know it’s going to hurt,” Schleck remarked. “It was technical in the beginning, but I did better in the second half of the course. I needed to have prepared a little better for a time trial but didn’t really have the time to do that, so I’m satisfied with my results today.”
“Overall in looking at the entire Giro with Fränk’s time of 59 seconds off the lead, I feel optimistic,” added team director Lars Michaelsen. “Damiano Cunego and Michele Scarponi didn’t do well in the time trial, so that is good for us.”
Even given Schleck’s modest time losses on the day, his Radioshack-Nissan team could be satisfied with placing two of its riders in the top ten on the stage. Jesse Sergent was ninth after holding the second best time for most of the day, and Nelson Oliveira finished tenth.
“I think our ambition was to have someone be on the podium of course,” Michaelsen stated. “But in the end we got two guys in the top ten and I think we can be happy about that. It was a technical, very difficult time trial for Nelson Oliveira. He needs something that requires more of an explosive effort. And for Jesse Sergent it was very nice to see that at the end when he was facing a stiff headwind, he only missed the lead by a few seconds.”
For Oliveira, third in the individual time trial this year in Circuit de la Sarthe, the spot on the edge of the top ten was not quite enough.
“In the end I can’t say I’m really happy,” Oliveira admitted. “I’ve been feeling so strong, but we’ll see how things continue tomorrow. It’s a long race with 20 days still to go.”
Stage two of the Giro d’Italia takes riders on a 206-kilometer run that begins and ends in Herning, Denmark.