sábado, fevereiro 26, 2005
Petacchi finishes off in style
Alessandro Petacchi has completed the Fassa Bortolo whitewash of the Vuelta Valenciana, winning the fifth and final stage in a bunch sprint and taking out the overall classification in the process. Petacchi won three of the five stages, finished second in one won by his teammate Flecha, and third in another. He is now well on track to try to win Milan-San Remo on March 19.
"I won't hide it, I'm the strongest Petacchi ever," he said after his latest triumph. "Yesterday I had confirmation of it. It was good that we did not do the final climb, but the parcours was hard and I was in front with the leaders. To win Valenciana also has a certain effect on me. If I look at the past winners I see people that are all on the climbs. Even if this edition was not quite as hard, to see my name in the middle of the classic climbers will always have an effect on me.
"The win today was the cherry on the cake at the end of a fantastic week for my team. We won four of five stages and the final classification. To do more was impossible. I will return to Italy on Sunday evening and then on Wednesday go and ride the final part of the route of Milan-San Remo. I don't want to leave anything to chance."
Results
1 Alessandro Petacchi (Ita) Fassa Bortolo 3.22.57
2 Fco.José Ventoso (Spa) Saunier Duval-Prodir
3 Geoffroy Lequatre (Fra) Credit Agricole
4 Constantino Zaballa (Spa) Saunier Duval-Prodir
5 Marco Velo (Ita) Fassa Bortolo
6 Javier Cherro (Spa) Comunidad Valenciana
7 Erik Zabel (Ger) T-Mobile Team
8 Antonio Colom (Spa) Illes Balears
9 Luciano A. Pagliarini (Bra) Liquigas-Bianchi
10 Ion Del Rio (Spa) Andalucia-Paul Versan
Alessandro Petacchi has completed the Fassa Bortolo whitewash of the Vuelta Valenciana, winning the fifth and final stage in a bunch sprint and taking out the overall classification in the process. Petacchi won three of the five stages, finished second in one won by his teammate Flecha, and third in another. He is now well on track to try to win Milan-San Remo on March 19.
"I won't hide it, I'm the strongest Petacchi ever," he said after his latest triumph. "Yesterday I had confirmation of it. It was good that we did not do the final climb, but the parcours was hard and I was in front with the leaders. To win Valenciana also has a certain effect on me. If I look at the past winners I see people that are all on the climbs. Even if this edition was not quite as hard, to see my name in the middle of the classic climbers will always have an effect on me.
"The win today was the cherry on the cake at the end of a fantastic week for my team. We won four of five stages and the final classification. To do more was impossible. I will return to Italy on Sunday evening and then on Wednesday go and ride the final part of the route of Milan-San Remo. I don't want to leave anything to chance."
Results
1 Alessandro Petacchi (Ita) Fassa Bortolo 3.22.57
2 Fco.José Ventoso (Spa) Saunier Duval-Prodir
3 Geoffroy Lequatre (Fra) Credit Agricole
4 Constantino Zaballa (Spa) Saunier Duval-Prodir
5 Marco Velo (Ita) Fassa Bortolo
6 Javier Cherro (Spa) Comunidad Valenciana
7 Erik Zabel (Ger) T-Mobile Team
8 Antonio Colom (Spa) Illes Balears
9 Luciano A. Pagliarini (Bra) Liquigas-Bianchi
10 Ion Del Rio (Spa) Andalucia-Paul Versan
# posted by Anônimo : 5:33 PM
