Jens Voight is the Man!
Jens Voight won the 2nd stage of the Tour of Germany with incredible will. Two 2nd Category climbs in the finale. He goes clear over the first climb, ends up in a group of eight men. They are brought back before the final climb. There is a descent into a town where the stage finishes after the 2nd and final climb. He goes clear again on that climb, with past-master at the classics David Rebellin and Kazak Andre Kashechkin. Rebellin starts missing turns as they come into the last four kilometers, trying to save his legs for the sprint. Meanwhile the bunch is chasing hard. Zabel is there, desperate for a win. They come under the kilometer kite with a 10 - 15 second lead. Rebellin keeps skipping turns. I start to get worried for Voight, a rider I like very much. Amazing that that he attacked again, many riders would have given up after being brought back after going away over the first climb. Now he has a classic winner sucking his wheel. Surely he is doomed? With four or five hundred metes to go he looks back and sees the bunch on his heels. He surges and they lose Kashekin. The bunch is now at five seconds. There is a corner at 150M to go over a slight rise. Does he sit there and wait so as not to let Rebellin the advantage by draft him, but allow the bunch to catch up? No way dude, he doesn't want to risk getting caught on the line and he isn't afraid of Rebellin. He should be right, Rebellin won a triple a in 2004, taking the Liege-Bastogne-Liege, Fleche Wallonne, and Amstel Gold raaces over 8 days. But Voight's motto, when in doubt, attack! So Voight jumps hard for the corner; he gaps Rebellin initially, but Rebellin claws his way back up to Voight as they take the corner, but they take it so fast, Rebellin slides out as his inside-outside line threatened to put him into the barriers, and he almost lost his back wheel from underneath him. Voight doesn't see this, but sprints out of the corner hard, zig-zagging across the road. Rebellin was set up well to pass Voight and may well have taken the stage from him but for the narrow road, but Voight's aggressiveness played to his advantage yet again! What a great rider!
posted by Mark @ 7:57 AM
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