Astana Cycling Team

Josep Jufré, Tour Down Under diary from Biciciclismo

Tuesday, January 19, 2010

Hello, everybody,

Author - Guido Bontempi

First stage of the Tour Down Under and first ProTour race of the year 2010. Then the first crash of the year. Yes, yes, the very beginning, and when we’d covered a few meters of the route, there was a big pile-up. I hit the ground when we were practically already stopped. It was only a whack on the backside, nothing more; but I saw some ripped shorts. Luckily it seemed to me that there were no serious consequences for anybody.

But let me start from the beginning: Today there was a pretty long transfer to get to the start line, but when we got to Clare (the start town), there were so many people expecting us that it much more than made up for the transfer. We’re delighted with the Australians, they treat us with a lot of respect.

Today, and another year, makes me realize that each time there are more riders who’re coming to ride full-throttle for victory from the very beginning; we talked about it with the guys on our team. Today, on a little rise of 2.4 kilometers, we were climbing rapidly, the peloton had split into three parts and in general we had also taken a brisk pace during the entire stage. I think that surely the desire was to eliminate some good sprinter out of the many that are in this tour. But in the end the authoritative winner was Greipel, who has already gotten us used to him winning on Australian soil.

A little more, another transfer to the hotel and then to rest. Tomorrow I’ll tell you more.

Best,
Josep Jufré Pou (Rider for Astana)

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