Rabobank's Grischa Niermann had to work a lot in the Vuelta a Valencia, as colleague Alexander Kolobnev took the leader's jersey on the first day. "Bram de Groot and I were practically alone at the front of the field in stages 2, 3 and 4, in order to protect our yellow jersey. But in the last 3 steep kilometres of the fourth stage, unfortunately Alexander had to let a couple of Spanish mountain goats pull away, and he lost the yellow jersey 16 seconds. So I could finally rest up in the field during the last stage! But unfortunately there was wind all day so there was no chance to rest. We then tried to blow up the field in the finale, and it worked, but the three riders in front of Kolobnev in the GC were paying attention, so he had to be satisfied with a fourth place on GC.
"At least I was able to 'train' well in Spain, and I'm looking forward to Paris-Nice," he continued. "And in order to do well there, I've started a special training camp. Based on my experience the last couple of years in Paris-Nice (snow, snow and more snow!) I'm training right now in the very wintry Hanover, Germany!"
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