Competitions

Durán proves strong on the cobbles

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Parent Category: Competitions

Category: Tour de France 2010

Published on Tuesday, 06 July 2010 19:28

Written by Luca Salvatelli

Arkaitz Durán demonstrated how focused he can be on the bike and slots now into the best youngsters of the 97th Tour de France, which came today into its first determining stage with up to seven difficult cobbled sections in the 213k route from Wanze to Arenberg. The FOOTON-SERVETTO-FUJI rider from Vitoria finished in 16th place after a stage full of crashes and flat tires, where cobblestones and continuous pace changes broke up the race into three echelons: a quintet commanded by now maillot jaune Fabian Cancellara (SAX); a second favs group, featuring Durán as well as Rafael Valls; and the big peloton, with four other Gold riders, just missing dropped Eros Capecchi and Fabio Felline. Eventually, an unfortunate puncture avoided Valls getting into the first big group and let him join the second bunch, two minutes behind the quintet led by Thor Hushovd (CTT), stage winner over Thomas (SKY) and Evans (BMC). Durán gets now in 22th position overall before entering the series of flat stages across Northern France lands, the first one on Wednesday, with 154k from Cambrai to Reims.

"Durán and Valls responded particularly well, I'm very happy with them. -commented Sports Director Joxean Fernández Matxin-. It's a shame Valls punctured in the final kilometers; he was riding right into Contador's group, but had to let them go due to the mechanical, the neutral car was the only one that could assist him and finally he made it into the big group. All of them left a very good impression, except for Capecchi, feeling bad from the start of the cobbles and getting dropped with no chance, and Felline, who went into a crash in the first big section and was left behind. Now it's time for three easier stages, where we'll try to join the breaks, seek some sprint placement with Felline and reunite our chances after the troubles of the start; then, from Les Rousses and Morzine on, we'll search some good endeavours in the mountains with Durán, Valls, Capecchi -despite that lost time- and also Eibegger, proving really strong in the bunch today."