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Pascal Moves Into Top Gear
Olympic Champion Pascal Richard of the Linda McCartney Pro Cycling Team moved
to within 14 seconds of the overall lead at the Tour of Denmark yesterday.
The Swiss superstar went with a move of 17 riders that stole a minute and
twenty seconds over the next group on the road. Home rider Lennie Kristensen
was the best placed man in the break, and therefore donned the leader's
jersey yesterday evening. Pascal finished 13th in the gallop to the line in
Horsens, a few bike lengths behind stage winner Lars Michaelsen, another Dane.
"Another good team performance today, I'm satisfied with that," reported team
manager Sean Yates afterwards. "Pascal's come here in really good shape, and
though the race isn't hilly enough to really be his forte, it shows that when
you're in good form anything can happen."
American Matt De Canio, riding his first event of this magnitude, also
impressed his boss. "Matt and Bjornar made the first group behind the
leaders, which was good too. We're 6th in the team classification now, in
front of some really big squads, so it shows everyone's pulling together
well."
Britain's Matthew Stephens survived a scare when a pile-up left him chewing
the tarmac and nursing a sore wrist. "I'll be getting a reputation as a bit
of a crasher at this rate," smiled Matt ruefully, after an evening x-ray
showed up nothing more serious than a painful bruise. He was able to regain
the big bunch that arrived in Horsens 20 minutes behind Pascal's group.
Though Kristensen wears the jersey, the big favourite to win this race must
now be Deutsche Telekom's Andreas Kloden. The young German, already a winner
at Paris-Nice this year, is an excellent time-triallist, and will be looking
to Friday's test against the watch to take this race by the scruff of the
neck. He's currently in 9th place, on exactly the same time as Pascal, after
making the same break as the McCartney man.
Pascal, wearing his new custom Giro helmet, is as ever at the centre of press
attention here. Sean has also had his fair share of action, as he was whisked
off to a late-night dentists appointment to deal with an abscess on Tuesday
evening, but was deemed fit to continue behind the wheel of the Renault for
the duration of the race.
Report by John Deering
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