Deutschland Tour takes a diversion

The fifth stage of the Deutschland Tour got off to a late start Sunday. Bad weather in southern Germany caused race organisers to change the route, but only after the riders protested.

"It is not yet clear, whether ther riders will start," reported the live ticker at 11:00am. "Apparently, they don't want to ride the Kühtal Pass because of the bad weather."

Shortly thereafter, the pass was removed from the race route, thus losing the HC mountain and cutting about 30 kilometres off the original course.

Said CSC directeur-sportif Kim Andersen, "They didn't want to cross the biggest climb, because they said the descent was way too dangerous in that weather, but that's debatable, I guess. The organisers did underline the fact that the same thing will NOT be happening tomorrow. They'll have to climb all the mountains - including the hors category one," he said.