"The funniest time trial ever!"

Gerolsteiner's Thomas Ziegler prepared himself rather casually for yesterday's Stage 9 time trial at the Vuelta, "not as thoroughly as I would if I were going for the win. But what happened was the funniest time trial ever!" he told German Radsportnews in his daily diary.

"Bram de Groot started directly after me. We know each other and get along well. He caught me after only 11 km. Then we rode along together. Nothing illegal, just together. Sometimes one of us in front, sometimes the other. After 17km we caught up with the Spaniard Garcia Acosta. So now we were a group of three... We joked so much underway, that at times we could barely ride for laughing! We attacked each other as if it were a regular road race. I've never experienced anything like that before. One time I passed three riders in front of me in a time trial, but to be caught myself - and that the two of us together caught another rider - that doesn't happen very often."

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