Jens Voigt has been on the attack almost every day in the past week, but today on the way to Montélimar was the first time it actually worked. Voigt won the 13th stage from Oscar Pereiro after a 200+ km breakaway, and all the suffering in the past couple of weeks has finally paid off. Brecht Decaluwé reports from the finish.
Q: Did you think you were the best rider in that group?
JV: Maybe it wasn't me who had the best legs in that break. But maybe you could say that if I won today, it might have been that I was the one rider who was most desperate for a win.
Q: Is that on your own behalf or on that of the team?
JV: Of course I wasn't only winning for myself, but also for the team. All these crashes and explanations on why I finished last in the time trial... Now I can say, 'I saved this energy for today!' But I also won for my team. We only have six riders left in the race, and out of the six, four have already crashed. So we only have two riders left who have not yet crashed. There was a lot of bad luck, and we just tried to keep the morale up. We had a good day in the mountains with Carlos Sastre and Fränk Schleck, and today, we have this stage win which I think is going to take a lot of pressure off us.
