Redant: Zubeldia was pushed

Davitamon-Lotto's sports director Hendrik Redant commented about the crazy Basque fans that graced the Pyrenean climbs over the past weekend, adding an element of danger and excitement to the Tour, as they do every year. Redant was quoted on Sporza radio as saying, "The Basque really love the Pyrenees of course, there's those orange T-shirts everywhere. It's really crazy, those last few kilometres especially. There should be more barriers!

"At one point, Cadel Evans dropped Zubeldia. He's Basque. Suddenly he was catching back up to Cadel's wheel riding 35km/h; he was constantly pushed! I put myself straight on Cadel's back wheel to strike some fear in those spectators, 'cause otherwise Zubeldia would have been able to get away without problems.

"I think I hit five to six guys, who were jumping in front of the car. Yesterday was bad, but today was just not on! When I see that they could put 7km of fencing on Alpe d'Huez, then I think they should do the same on the other climbs. This way it's just madness.

"Landis was in trouble, Klöden and Jaksche were dropped and we could have done a really good thing for GC there, but Cadel said he couldn't get past them because of the people on the climb. That says enough.

"I took a lot of risks today driving so close to the people, but it's the only way to get some space. My horn stopped working during the last two kilometres so that was even more of a problem...one of these days something bad is going to happen."