Aldag reflects on Tour

By Brecht Decaluwé

Rolf Aldag looked back with Cyclingnews on T-Mobile's Tour de France. "It was ups and downs for us. We had Linus in the yellow jersey and winning a stage," Aldag said. But then things started to go down. "The next day we lost our captain Michael Rogers who was in really good shape. He was in the breakaway when he crashed, so he had a really good chance to ride with the best in the Tour. That was bringing us down a lot but we fought back with Kim," Aldag continued with an up.

Another down for the team was the positive doping test from Patrick Sinkewitz, a test that was performed earlier in June. Meanwhile in the Tour Luxemburger Kim Kirchen managed to get into the top ten. "Kim wasn't the leader when we came to the Tour, we thought that he could do good in one single stage but he rode himself into this Tour and that was really nice to see, especially the way he came to get it.

"He was really relaxed, he was really fighting on the bike," Aldag described how Kirchen managed to claim his seventh place in Paris. "He had two really bad days but he kept fighting. Also the way he led the team was a really positive way. That's really good to see that people develop in the Tour, that people have something extra."