91st Giro d'Italia - Stage 10 Comments
Team and Rider Comments

Marzio Bruseghin
Marzio "Cloud Nine" Bruseghin said the following after he dominated the stage today: "I'm truly happy, I came to the Giro to win a stage, so I can say that I've accomplished my task already. Now I'll try and get a good overall placing. This victory was quite unexpected, even if yesterday I realized that I could do fine. It was not easy though: I got off to a quiet start, later it started raining, and I didn't want to take any risks at all those roundabouts; I rode a good tempo on the climbs and did my best to save some energy for the final part. To be here against guys who made the podium at the Tour of France or even won the race gives deep joy and satisfaction to a rider as old as I am".

Team CSC
Gustav Larsson Advanced after Great Time Trial
Gustav Larsson did well on Tuesday, when the riders in Giro d'Italia had to do a 36-kilometer time trial from Pesaro to Urbino. The Swedish Team CSC rider finished in eight place with 59 seconds to stage winner Marzio Bruseghin (Lampre). With this result Larsson is only one second from making the top-10 overall.

Team CSC had a good day with six riders in the top-40. Besides Larsson they were Jason McCartney, Michael Blaudzun, Nicki Sørensen, Chris Anker Sørensen and Jens Voigt.

"On the whole I think everything went according to plan today even though it would've been fantastic if Gustav had made the overall top-10, because he was only a few seconds short. Chris surprised positively and got away with a minimal time loss, so hopefully he'll be able to advance slowly but surely in the overall standings once we hit the real mountains," said Team CSC sports director Kim Andersen after the stage.

Team Astana
Italian rider Marzio Bruseghin, along with rainy conditions, kept Astana Cycling Team from victory in the 10th stage of the Giro d’Italia, a 39.4 K individual time trial which started in Pesaro and ended in Urbino. Alberto Contador finished second while team-mate Andreas Klöden came in third. The rest of Astana placed well and had a strong race: Levi Leipheimer (9th), Vladimir Gusev (17th) and Andrej Mizurov (26th). The Kazakh-based team showed that even with less-than-ideal preparation, they can play an important role in the Giro d’Italia.

After the first key stage, Alberto Contador is now first of the race's main classification contenders at 6'59" back, Andreas Klöden 55" further back, Vincenzo Nibali (Liquigas) 1'04", Paolo Savoldelli (LPR Brakes) 1.10, Riccardo Riccò (Saunier Duval-Scott) 1'33", Danilo Di Luca (LPR Brakes) and Denis Menchov (Rabobank) 1'58", with Gilberto Simoni (Diquigiovanni) and Levi Leipheimer 2’11”.

“I tried to win the stage. That was my first objective,” commented Alberto Contador (2nd at 8”). “Believe me, without the rain, I would have been the winner. I didn’t dare to take risks in the end. The last 500 meters on the cobblestones were very slippery as well. Anyway, afterwards I am happy with the time I gained today. My elbow? In the beginning it bothered me a bit, but the further we went in the stage, the better I felt. My second part of the time trial was indeed much better: the elbow, the legs and the performance. I do not want to make provisions for the future. I feel better and better but I have no idea what I can do in the big mountain stages. I have to repeat: we will see day after day.”

Andreas Klöden (3rd at 20”) had the fastest time after 32.2 K of the race. “I felt tired at the end, but I cannot complain. To be beaten by only Bruseghin and Contador is no disgrace.”

Andreas Klöden regrets he is misunderstood in an interview made by an Italian newspaper, and published today. He emphasizes that he never mentioned the name of a team where health controls would be less severe. “I said that – in contrast to many smaller teams – Astana, High Road, Slipstream and CSC have a very tight internal doping control system.”

Concerning participation in the Olympics, Andreas Klöden specifies that he really wants to go to Beijing for the road race and time trial. “For the moment I am the best German time trialist. Of course I want to represent my country. It is not because cycling is not so popular any more in Germany, that I am not proud to defend the colours of my country. If I am selected, I will go of course. I told the journalist that, until now, the German federation has never contacted me about the Olympics.”

Saunier Duval/Scott
SAUNIER DUVAL-SCOTT´s Riccardo Riccò did quite well, showing some improvement in his time-trial skills, which everybody knows aren´t his strong suit.

Riccardo came in 16th, 2´ 04" behind Bruseghin, and was faster than his direct rivals Franco Pellizotti (Liquigas, +5") and Danilo Di Luca (LPR Brakes, +7"). "La Cobra" managed to fulfill his expectations of losing less than 2´ over time-trial specialists, even after a fall halfway through the race that prevented him from doing even better. He's now 9th in the GC, while Leonardo Piepoli, who did quite well today too, is 22nd. Let's bear in mind that these two natural-born climbers have all the "Corsa Rosa's mountain stages still ahead.

Riccardo Riccò: "My glove got caught in the handlebar, which made it impossible to make a turn, so I wound up on the floor. If not for this bad maneuver, I could have finished 40 seconds earlier, and that would've been a wonderful time-trial for a rider like me."