T-Mobile's Gerald Ciolek sprinted to back to back victories in the Deutschland Tour on Thursday. The 20-year-old blasted off the wheel of lead-out man André Greipel to take the stage seven victory ahead of Erik Zabel (Milram) on the rain soaked roads of Regensburg. The win followed his hotly contested win on stage six where he barged past Italian Danilo Napolitano to take his first win since he took the overall victory in the Rheinland Pfalz Rundfahrt and a stage in April's Niedersachsen Rundfahrt.
"Yesterday, there was a beer to celebrate, today, maybe there'll be two," Ciolek joked on the team's website, www.t-mobile-team.com. The team had its work cut out for it bringing back a motivated break of five which gained more than five minutes on the field. When the break was brought back with 10 km to go, the team also had to assemble its lead-out on a difficult run-in to the sprint which included a hairpin bend 700 metres from the line.
"I'm delighted for the team who were highly motivated right from the start in Saarbrücken and concentrated so well on the task in hand,” said sporting director Jan Schaffrath. "It's beautiful to see how victory comes when all the riders work together and have a little bit of luck on their side. The riders have been rewarded for their work.”
Team CSC's Jens Voigt maintained his slim lead on the overall classification going into the decisive individual time trial around Fürth. He leads David Lopez Garcia (Caisse d'Epargne) by 33 seconds and Rabobank's Robert Gesink by 1'14".
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