Young guns strong in Dunkirk
Dave Zabriskie was Team CSC's best rider in 20th place at Saturday's Giro prologue in Reggio Calabria, four seconds off the winning time set by Brett Lancaster (Ceramica Panaria-Navigare), with team leader Ivan Basso another two seconds behind the US time trial champion in 53rd place, but directeur sportif Bjarne Riis was satisfied with the outcome.
"Today was not an important test for us, but I think we got a fine start," said Riis on the team's website, www.team-csc.com. "It was a very special prologue; we did OK and Ivan didn't lose any valuable time to the other main contenders for the GC. Now the race has started and there's a good atmosphere among our riders, who are ready to face this challenge."
Basso echoed his DS's comments, and says he feels ready for the coming three weeks: "I'm satisfied with my prologue, and it was nice to finally get started," he said.
"It was a very special opening of the race, but I believe the audience down here liked what they saw, and I think it was great fun to start out like this. There's still a long way to go, but I'm really comfortable and most important of all, I can feel that I'm ready."
Meanwhile, over in France, two of the team's younger riders, Linus Gerdemann and Andy Schleck, both finished in the top 10 overall at the Four Days of Dunkirk, with Gerdemann finishing fifth overall in his debut for Team CSC, and along the way, wearing the leader's jersey, the young rider's jersey and the mountains jersey.
"All in all we're very satisfied," said sports director Kim Andersen. "We really put our mark on this race and the young riders showed great enthusiasm and excellent morale all the way through. This is definitely not the last we've heard of them."
