Astana rider hopes to get back into the battle for the GC
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Janez Brajkovic (Astana) fought hard to keep his losses to 46 seconds(Image credit: Bettini Photo)
Pierre Rolland and Janez Brajkovic finished in the top ten(Image credit: Sirotti)
Jani Brajkovic (Astana) gets medical treatment after a crash(Image credit: Bettini Photo)
Janez Brajkovic described himself as "satisfied" with his eighth place finish at the La Planche des Belles Filles summit finish. The Astana leader felt that his performance wasn’t perfect, but hopes that it will provide him with a platform for his goal of a high finish at the Tour de France.
"It wasn’t perfect but it wasn’t bad. I’m pretty satisfied with my performance today. There were no crashes today so that was something different. Hopefully I’ll get a little bit better and get into the GC again," he said.
He said he was not in the least bit surprised by the performance of Team Sky’s riders. "That was expected," he said. But he was surprised by the pace heading into the final climb.
"Leading into the climb we were doing 480 watts. It was really incredible how fast we went. The good thing is that this climb was nothing like most of the climbs we’re going to be on over the next two weeks. This climb was terrible," said the Slovenian.
"After a few kilometres I started to go at my own rhythm in order to avoid blowing up. Near the top I ran out of gas a little bit, but in the end I think I did a pretty decent climb."
Brajkovic now lies 17th overall, just over three minutes down on race leader Bradley Wiggins, but hopes he can move closer to the top 10 during the mountain stages in the coming days.
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Peter Cossins has written about professional cycling since 1993 and is a contributing editor to Procycling. He is the author of The Monuments: The Grit and the Glory of Cycling's Greatest One-Day Races (Bloomsbury, March 2014) and has translated Christophe Bassons' autobiography, A Clean Break (Bloomsbury, July 2014).
