“I didn’t have a great day yesterday but it was okay. But last night I was talking to Andy and I said, ‘Tomorrow it’s all on: balls to the wall!’ We wanted to make the race happen and that’s what we did so it’s pretty satisfying. This morning at the team meeting we talked about how to handle the stage and we agreed, ‘Right, we’re not going to put anyone out there in an escape... we’ll just take the responsibility, make the race hard and just try to tire out the other guys. That’s just what we did.
“Andy and I showed character and we showed that we could stick to the plan. We attacked – oh, I don’t know how many times… but we had to attack as often as we could. In the end I went up to Andy and we finally were at the front of the race: the two ‘Schleckies’ and the Astana guys.
“Attacking on the final climbs and the pacing beforehand is what made it hard. It was a mix of both. We could have waited until the last climb but that would not have been enough; we could have only taken about 30 seconds… and Andy and I needed more if we want to finish on the podium. We had to attack early.”
Interview
July 22
nd
2009
- 18:13
Frank Schleck – “It's all on: balls to the wall...!”
