"I achieved what I wanted to achieve. And I am super satisfied with that," said a very happy Stefan Schumacher Sunday evening. The 26 year-old Gerolsteiner rider finished third in the men's World Championships road race.
"I had the chance to become World champion. But Bettini was the strongest in the end," he said on the team's website, gerolsteiner.de. "It just wasn't enough. The race was so hard. I am happy just to have won a medal." He also thanked this team-mates, saying, "The team worked really great."
His Gerolsteiner team-mate Fabian Wegmann finished ninth, and Erik Zabel was 18th. "It worked out the way we thought it would today," said Zabel, who finished second in the race last year. "With the attack by Wegmann and Schumacher we had two up front, and they did a great job." He stayed back in the following group in case it came down to a sprint. "Then I would have been able to go with fresh power."
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