Jens Voigt, one of my absolute favourite riders, is out of the tour!
Apparently weakened by a bronchitis, he missed the cutoff today by a measly 41 seconds. No mercy from the jury. Seems yellow is not a lucky color for the CSC boys. Man, I feel so bad for him.
malte
Yeah one of my favs as well and I’m sorry to see him out of the Tour.
That is heartbreakingly close. The autobus was full of riders just ahead of him.
bronchitis? hmm.
Jens Voight is THE MAN! He absolutely was unstoppable in the classics this spring.
There’s a picture in the Casey Gibson gallery at Velonews purportedly of Jens realizing he is close to the timecut and riding hard to try and make it.
I’m not disagreeing. I like Jens. I’m just saying that I’m not surprised he’s a bit burnt out after his super-long attack.
That is terrible. If CSC didnt leave a guy behind to nurse him in I will be pissed. It seems their m.o. to leave their riders out to dry.
Dammit
You’ve been listening too much to Bob Roll. If you listen to the riders, they have nothing but praise for the team. But if you listen to Bob Roll it appears Riis is Hitler himself. CSC kept a team car with Zabriskie all the way, a lot of teams wouldn’t (in fact, CSC also provided assistance to a Liquigas guy who rode with Zabriskie that day, as the Liquigas car was nowhere near). For Voigt, there were actually two riders (Lombardi and Roberts) with him until it became clear they might not make the cut-off. Then the two riders went ahead (with the bus) while Kim Andersen in the team car stayed with Jens. No point in losing three riders when one is sick and unable to continue. In Voigt’s own words: “When I started in today’s stage, I knew it was against all odds, but I still wanted to do everything I possibly could to continue. Kim Andersen gave me a lot of motivation during the stage, but in the end it just wasn’t enough”
I understand that most don’t have the luxury to talk to riders, but it is quite unbelievable how many apply for a spot on CSC and very rarely does a rider want to leave the team (you’d be quite surprised by the names too). They know they will be taken care of properly, even if they don’t have the biggest budget. That cannot be said for a lot of other teams.
Gerard, I think Fishman’s post was tongue in cheek (just a guess, as I know Fishman).
But bummer about Jens. Hope he gets well soon. He’s a top notch guy. I’ll bet these guys are bumming big time tonight.
You know what they say, c’est le ton qui fait la musique. but no audio with these forum posts.