Ludwig defends tactics

By Hedwig Kröner in Tarbes

T-Mobile team manager Olaf Ludwig has defended his team's tactics yesterday, which saw T-Mobile lose the yellow jersey to AG2R, but still ride on the front all day. "Yes, but did we defend the jersey? No," he told Cyclingnews in Tarbes before the start of stage 11.

At the end of the stage, the gap between the peloton and Cyril Dessel was 7'23. "I think it is small enough," said Ludwig. "We tried to make the other teams to ride, too, but they decided not to. So we just limited the time difference. And we did try to have somebody in the break - the group that left was the first one where we unfortunately weren't represented."