“If I’m not going to be there in the sprint, then I might as well try something else”
Showing that he continues to have strong fitness plus an aggressive spirit despite being 41 years of age, Jens Voigt animated today’s second stage of the Vuelta al Pais Vasco with a stirring late attack.
The RadioShack Leopard rider accelerated thirty kilometres from the finish in Vitoria and went clear with Adriano Malori of Lampre-Merida. Together, they closed in on the solo leader Amets Txurruka (Caja Rural) and the trio worked together to try to hold off the main bunch.
Voigt powered the pedals around in his characteristic fashion, his bike moving from side to side with each rotation of the cranks. His effort helped drive the gap back out to over a minute, but the sprinters’ teams were working hard behind and would eventually close the move down.
Still, Voigt was glad to have given it a go. “It looked like the race was kind of set for today with Txurruka alone out front. But I thought to myself: ‘He is alone out there, he’s tired, so perhaps I can reach him.’ I asked Kim [Anderson, RadioShack Leopard directeur sportif] if I should go and he said it was up to me, so I did it. Malori ended up going with me and at one point we had a minute.”
Voigt admitted that he knew they didn’t have much of a chance, but said that he’d prefer to be out front rather than sitting in the bunch. “If I’m not going to be there in the sprint, then I might as well try something else,” he said.
This fighting spirit persisted, even after the bunch drew ever-closer to the break, with Voigt continuing to blast along.
“Once you open that box, you might as well empty the whole box,” he reasoned. “You never know. Something can happen and you might still have a chance.”
The German rider is clearly in good form and could well try again in the days to come. He may be one of the oldest riders in the peloton, but he is still fired up to ride aggressively and to put far younger riders under pressure.