Farrar’s leadout man crashed an hour before the team’s start in Sevilla
Surprisingly, Garmin-Transitions finished well adrift of the top time set by HTC-Columbia in tonight’s team time trial on the streets of Sevilla, the capital of the autonomous region of Andalucia. The team was significantly hampered, however, by an incident that happened before they ever rolled off the start ramp onto the flood lit course.
Kiwi leadout man extraordinaire, Julian Dean, took a tumble while warming up in the hour ahead of the team’s start.
Team director and former professional, Bingen Fernandez, described the incident to feltet.dk: “Julian Dean crashed on a bike path, which was five centimeters higher than the road. It happened one hour before the race during the war up. He suffered abrasions to his shoulder, right elbow, and right side of his body.”
The crash was apparently not a minor one though, as it was enough to knock the big engine out of the TTT effort within a kilometer.
“After a kilometer, he was dropped, so we had to effectively race one rider down, and Julian is a very important rider on the team.”
With the loss of Dean so early, the team was at a disadvantage almost immediately, but they still managed to make due and put together a reasonable ride. Still, sixth place in the team time trial was not what the Garmin-Transitions team had hoped for ahead of the race.
“Five or six of our riders rode really well. David Zabriskie is strong at the moment. The team time trial is our specialty. We will always want to win it, and we were one of the favorites, so we cannot say that we are happy with sixth place, but it is not totally bad.”
Fortunately for the team, Dean looks to be ok and will start tomorrow, and the loss of 17 seconds to HTC-Columbia should not play too heavily in three weeks time. If GC hope, Tom Danielson, is able to put together a full three weeks of healthy racing, as he almost did in 2009, the 17 seconds he lost on the opening night will be nearly irrelevant, as HTC-Columbia does not look to be a contender for overall glory. However, 2nd placed Liquigas has one of the top favorites in Vincenzo Nibali – Garmin lost only 7 seconds to the Italian squad.