Zabriskie feeling better

"I got through today without too much hassle," said David Zabriskie after stage five of the Tour won by Robbie McEwen. The former race leader is still suffering from the injuries resulting of yesterday's dramatic crash, where he lost the yellow jersey, but his spirit is on the rise.

"I was still quite sore at the beginning, and it still hurts when I breathe heavily. Mentally, however, I feel much better than yesterday, when I was really down. The team has given me a lot of support on top of the crash, and I feel ready to go on," said Zabriskie, who is allergic to normal bandages so the team doctor patched him up only with tiny little plasters on his cuts and wounds.

CSC was again unfortunate today, as Ivan Basso crashed shortly before the feed zone, which resulted in another few kilometres' team time trial to get the GC contender back to the bunch. Luckily the crash was not serious.

"We tried to make some of the breakaways at the beginning, especially Jens Voigt, but it's apparent that the others won't let us get away. The most important though is, that we got through the stage fairly easy and that we have been able to shake off yesterday's disappointment," said the team's director Bjarne Riis.