St. Etienne: 09/06/2009

Niki Terpstra has taken over the yellow jersey of the overall lead with his victory of the third stage of the Dauphine Libere. After 182 kilometres from Tournus to St. Etienne, the Dutch MILRAM rider won the sprint of a breakaway of five in front of Ludovich Turpin (AG2r) and Yuri Trofimov of Team Bouygues Telecom-BBox. Thanks to an advantage of 1:32 minutes to the peloton in the finish, Niki Terpstra took over the leader’s jersey from Cadel Evans (Silence-Lotto). Christian Knees finished tenth again in St. Etienne, while Paul Voss was 13th.

“Niki is always in it for a surprise,” said a delighted team manager Gerry van Gerwen after the victroy of his fellow countryman in France. “This win will give him further self-confidence and also confirms the rising performances of the team these past few weeks.”

Niki Terpstra charged to take Team MILRAM’s sixth season victory after about 30 kilometres raced. This was where the breakaway of five was created, which later had a maximum lead of up to 5:38 minutes on a hilly route which included four climbs counting for fourth category mountain points. The main bunch reacted too late this time and was not able to reduce the gap sufficiently. In the finish, the escapists still had a lead of 1:32 and thereby shook the general classification for now. One day before the individual time trial of 42 kilometres in Valence on Wednesday, MILRAM rider Niki Terpstra now leads the race by 26 seconds in front of his escape companion Remi Pauriol (Cofidis) and Yuri Trofimov (+ 0:27). Cadel Evans, one of the favourites for the overall victory, is now placed fifth, 1:01 minutes back.

Result
1 Niki Terpstra (NED) Team MILRAM
2 Ludovic Turpin (FRA) AG2r La Mondiale
3 Yuri Trofimov (RUS) BBox Bouygues Telecom
4 Rémi Pauriol (FRA) Cofidis
5 Inigo Landaluze (ESP) Euskaltel-Euskadi
6 Nikolai Trusov (RUS) Katusha + 1:32
7 Murilo Fischer (BRA) Liquigas
8 Marco Bandiera (ITA) Lampre-NGC
9 Marcus Zberg (SUI) BMC Racing Team
10 Christian Knees (GER) Team MILRAM
…
13 Paul Voss (GER) Team MILRAM
24 Fabian Wegmann (GER) Team MILRAM
54 Servais Knaven (NED) Team MILRAM
62 Martin Velits (SVK) Team MILRAM
137 Christian Kux (GER) Team MILRAM + 10:38
144 Dominik Roels (GER) Team MILRAM

General classification
1 Niki Terpstra (NED) Team MILRAM
2 Rémi Pauriol (FRA) Cofidis + 26
3 Yuri Trofimov (RUS) BBox Bouygues Telecom + 27
4 Inigo Landaluze (ESP) Euskaltel-Euskadi + 36
5 Cadel Evans (AUS) Silence-Lotto + 1:01
…
12 Christian Knees (GER) Team MILRAM + 1:35

The MILRAM roster:
Servais Knaven (NED/Meerle,BEL), Christian Knees (GER/Euskirchen), Christian Kux (GER/Chemnitz), Dominik Roels (GER/Köln), Niki Terpstra (NED/Haarlem), Martin Velits (SVK/Riemst,BEL), Paul Voss (GER/Bielefeld), Fabian Wegmann (GER/Freiburg im Breisgau)

Sports director: Vittorio Algeri (ITA)
Assistant sports director: Jochen Hahn (GER)

The 2009 stages:
7.6. Stage 1: Nancy – Nancy (12.1 km)
8.6. Stage 2: Nancy – Dijon (228 km)
9.6. Stage 3: Tournus – Saint-Étienne (182 km)
10.6. Stage 4: Bourg-les-Valence – Valence (ITT, 42.4 km)
11.6. Stage 5: Valence – Mont Ventoux (154 km)
12.6. Stage 6: Gap – Briançon (106 km)
13.6. Stage 7: Briançon – Saint-François-Longchamp (157 km)
14.6. Stage 8: Faverges – Grenoble (146 km)
Total length: 1.027.5 km

This entry was posted on Monday, June 15th, 2009 at 8:58 am and is filed under Focus & Team Milram. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.