Kurt-Asle Arvesen – “Lucky day for me!”

“I was struggling in the first 40 kilometers just to get up to the front because it was so fast early today. Luckily we have Jens Voigt riding for our team because he was unbelievably strong; he covered all the breaks and then when I came up to the front I said, ‘Sorry Jens, I’ll try to help you now.’ Then I went with a couple of moves and one of them got clear. _ “When the group formed, I thought we’d be in for a day in front of the stage. _ “In the final I felt strong, attacked a couple of times and then got away with [Martin] Elmiger. [Alessandro] Ballan came up… I wasn’t really in a good position for the sprint but once I opened it up, I felt good so it was just enough. Lucky day for me! _ “It was close at the finish, sure. It was just about five centimeters but that’s enough when you’re in front. I’ve been that far behind in the past so today was my day. _ “I was pretty worried about [Amael] Moinard because he got two minutes pretty quickly. I wonder how he did that because we were riding pretty hard behind him so he must have been good on the climb and the descent. We worked well together and were then confident we’d catch him.”