Massaglia in yellow as Ludewig takes his chance at Qinghai Lake
- By VeloNews.com
- Published Jul. 17, 2007
On Tuesday, the first real day in the high mountains at the Tour of Qinghai Lake, the expected assault on Discovery Channel saw overnight leader Allan Davis knocked off the top spot on the overall classification, and replaced by Selle Italia’s mountain man Gabriele Massaglia.
A late offensive on the 3880-meter-high Laji mountain by Selle Italia and Relax-Gam, the team of race favorite Francisco Mancebo, almost saw the blond-haired Aussie rejoin the front group on the 50km-long descent. Though unfortunately for Davis, just as his group began to close in on the front 17, he wiped out on the rain-soaked roads, putting paid to his chances and those of Chinese teammate Fuyu Li.
In that select group, each of the six teams represented bar two had teammates for company. But it was sole Weisenhof representative Joerg Ludewig who used all his experience to rejoin the lead and then turn the numbers game in his favor – taking an armchair ride to the finish in Guide before coming off Massaglia’s wheel to claim the fourth stage of the tour ahead of Sergio Barbero.
Said Ludewig: “Normally I can’t race very well in the rain, but today I said, ‘Now or never.’ It’s a very important day, because for five or six years at Saeco, I was a gregario, a helper for guys like Cipollini, Simoni – last year at T-Mobile as well – and today, I was able to take my own chance.”
Yo-yoing off the lead group on the long climb of Laji, the 31-year-old German said it was by no means a bluff: “I could only go my speed, nothing more, and I was dropped five or six times,” he said. “Because of the altitude, the problem was that I had almost no pain in my legs but I couldn’t breathe, so I decided to do my rhythm, and step by step, I re-entered the [first] group.
“My luck today was that we had very good tires this year and on the downhill, a lot of riders crashed. There were so many guys with two or three riders from each team, so I decided to do nothing. I knew from a couple of years ago that Massaglia won a big race in Germany, in Hamburg, and is very fast, so I looked for his rear wheel and passed him in the last 200 meters.”
At the start of the day, Ludewig was too far behind to contest the overall, but DFL-Cyclingnews’s Daniel Lloyd was one man who wasn’t, and now finds himself second on GC, just four seconds behind the yellow jersey of Massaglia and on the same time as Mancebo.
“Unbelievable on the descent – it was raining so hard, it was hurting my legs and arms,” said Lloyd of the volatile conditions encountered on Laji mountain. “But I felt good, and I’m pleased with the way I’m going. I thought Relax might take control of things a bit earlier and up the pace to make sure Allan [Davis] went out the back sooner; I don’t think they were going much better than us, to be honest.
“It’s the first of a few days that are going to decide the race,” added Lloyd. “Obviously, tomorrow’s a big climb as well, but I think the two biggest climbs are Stages 7 and 8, they’re just a bit steeper.”
Having lost the lead due to a fall and plummeting to 22nd overall, Davis was naturally disappointed, but was content with his performance so far this week. “You know, I did my best today and couldn’t of done any better… there were only 16 guys up the road, so it’s not too bad for a sprinter, I suppose,” he said.
“We were making a lot of ground and I thought we were going to get back on, but I came round a corner and just wiped out,” Davis said of his crash, nursing his bloodied right knee. “I slid a fair way, right where I had tendonitis a couple of months ago, so I hope it doesn’t flare up … I’m a bit worried about that.”
Eerie beginningOvercast skies gave a somewhat eerie aura to the start in Xihaizhen, an apt premonition for what lay ahead. The 172km journey would take the peloton away from Qinghai Lake and southeast to Guide – but not before traversing the 3880-meter behemoth known as Laji mountain.
As in the previous three days, a bunch of early attacks came to naught in the first half-hour, and in fact stayed that way for the next hour after, leaving the situation unchanged after 60km. However, soon afterwards, three men chose their moment to escape, and the peloton appeared satisfied to let them go.
By the feed zone at km 80.7, Barbero (Selle Italia), Clément Lhotellerie (Skil-Shimano) and Stanislav Kozubek (PSK Whirlpool) enjoyed a 2:50 lead over the bunch, which was having its second shower of the day, if they indeed woke up in time this morning. Soggy shoes aside, the trio soldiered on, and over the top of the mist-shrouded climb of Laji, a century of kilometers covered and 72 to go, the trio became part of a larger group of 12 that included Francisco Mancebo (Relax-Gam), Massaglia and Lloyd.
Behind them, the bunch had split to pieces, and the yellow jersey of Davis was desperately trying to rejoin the lead dozen. A few did make it, making it 17 by the bottom, but the Australian didn’t, crashing on a slick corner and losing any chance of getting back on. Ludewig, having just returned to the front, had a valid excuse to sit on, and recovered in the nick of time to save his legs for the sprint, which he won over Barbero and Massaglia.
The road ahead
Stage 5, the midway point of this year’s tour, is straight up and straight down. There’s another mountain and a half on the cards – but if a break is to succeed, they’ll need enough of a lead to fight the peloton’s natural momentum in the 55km downhill run to Xining, as the race returns to the region’s capital. Unless, of course, the race splits to bits like it did today.
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