Astana Cycling Team

Stage 6, May 14, 2010 - We’ve finished the sixth stage of the Giro d’Italia from Fidenza to Marina de Carrara, the first encounter with the mountains, since today we’ve had three climbs: two were second category—of 11 and 10 kilometers, respectively—and a short third category climb only 11 kilometers from the the finish, but at the end of a race that always causes damage.

I think a lot of riders in the peloton thought that the Lampre team would control things together with Liquigas (the race leaders) since Petacchi could have options since he lives in this town. But that’s not how it went, and effectively Liquigas has controled the race, but not in order to get the stage win. Anyway I’m happy that my ex-teammate and friend, Matthew Lloyd, won. Congratulations!

For our part, Astana had very bad luck, since Roman Kireyev and Valentin Iglinskiy were involved in a big pile-up, fortunately—in principle—without consequences. The worst moment of the day was, without doubt, Paolo Tiralongo’s crash descending the Brattello, where he had to say goodbye to the Giro. It’s really absolutely bad luck. Cycling takes a lot of sacrifice and heart and Paolo is an clear example of that. It was a clear goal for him, this Giro, and he was very motivated and in great shape to ride for the GC. It was a tough blow for the whole Astana team, since we’re definitely going to need him in the rest of the Giro. Hang in there, Paolo! and with this letter we hope that you recover as soon as possible, and that surely we can see you with Alberto and the rest of our teammates in the next Tour de France doing a great race.

And for our part, we’re going to keep working like we have in these six stages, we’ve got Vinokoukov for the general and the rest of the team is very well. The truth is that we’re happy with the work done so far and we’re going to keep together and united in order to do some nice things.

To wrap it up, I want to tell you that the Giro’s a great race and to encourage you to follow it closely because there are spectacular and very tough stages that will definitely be very exciting. I must congratulate all the Italian people, too, for their encouragement along the roads, since there are so many that come to see us every day.

From Marina de Carrara in Tuscany, greetings to everyone and, until next time,

Josep Jufre Pou, rider for Astana

Originally appearing in Biciciclismo