2009 Tour de France Prologue
On a humid afternoon in Monaco, the 96th Tour de France got underway with the Prologue Time Trial, a 15.5 km series of short steep climbs, and hairpin descents. Winner of the opening stage was Swiss Time Trial champion Fabian Cancellara of the Saxo Bank team. The victory marks the third Tour de France prologue win of his career.
Rabobank’s Denis Menchov had the unfortunate luck to start one and a half minutes ahead of Cancellara. Menchov, the winner of the 2009 Giro d’Italia--and the winner of the Giro’s stage 12 time trial—was passed by Cancellara in the final kilometer in Monaco. Going into Stage 2, Menchov sits in 53rd place, 1 minute and 31 seconds down on Cancellara. His team mate, Robert Gesink, had the best Rabobank finish on the day, placing 31st, 1:15 behind Cancellara.
Menchov admitted that his start to the Tour de France had been worse than expected but the Russian insisted that he is determined to get back on track as quickly as possible in the upcoming stages. “The Tour is three weeks long and I’m not beaten yet, not by a long way,” Menchov said afterwards. “A lot of things can happen in three weeks and defeats like this one just make me more determined to succeed in the long run.”
“I have to admit this result was a real surprise for me,” Menchov said. “I’d hoped to be much closer to my other big rivals for the overall. We’ve had no idea what could have gone wrong, but defeats like this sometimes happen in cycling.”
“You have to learn how to get over them, stay calm and then counter-attack as soon as you can.
You have to be optimistic about this,” Menchov added.
“As soon as Denis started the main climb we knew he wasn’t on a good day,” Rabobank team manager Erik Breukink said. “But Denis is a real fighter, and we’re still confident of his chances overall. Now, in any case, we’ll see what our team sprinter Oscar Freire can achieve over the next few flat stages. And when Denis’s next chance comes, we’re sure he’ll take it.”
RABOBANK 2009 TOUR DE FRANCE BLOG: JUAN ANTONIO FLECHA
Rabobank’s Juan Antonio Flecha is riding his seventh Tour de France. A stage winner in 2003 in Toulouse, this year his mission is to provide vital support for team leader Denis Menchov on the flat and hilly stages, then to struggle through the mountains as best he can to fight another day. Below, Flecha blogs about Rabobank team objectives just prior to the start of the 2009 Tour de France.
So here we are in Monaco, with another Tour just about to start. The question everybody seems to want to ask me is how Rabobank are going to go for two overall objectives, the yellow and the green jerseys, one with Denis and the other with Oscar [Freire].
That’s easy, in fact. It’s all thanks to Oscar and his not needing hardly any support to get to the front in the bunch sprints
Last year he had virtually no help when he won the points jersey, and this time round it’s the same - we’re going for yellow, but Oscar’s by himself. Denis, assuming he’s in a good overall position, is our number one objective.
And the first big challenge for Denis in the mountains will be the Andorra-Arcalis summit finish in the Pyrenees next Friday. Something that people have forgotten, perhaps, is that he was the last winner there in a major Tour, on a stage of the Tour of Spain in 2007. That day he got the yellow jersey and he held it all the way to Madrid - a good omen!
Denis was the most recent winner too in the last race to visit Andorra-Arcalist - a mountain time trial in the Tour of Catalunya in 2008.
So you can say it’s a climb he knows well, and I’m sure he’ll do a good ride there. Compared with other Tours I think he’s much more confident and in much better shape than in other years, too.
That’s basically all happened because he’s won the Tour of Italy, so he knows he’s done his homework and he’s more sure of himself. He’s as ready as he can be.
And as for me, I’m in good shape, almost as good as Denis - although on a very different level!
I’ve already done six Tours and this time round I’ve got very clear ideas about my role and what I want to do. I’m feeling very ambitious. I’ve already won one Tour stage back in 2003, and I’m a better rider than when I won it. So logically, things should go better, too.
Last year I made a mistake because I tried to be a real support rider everywhere for the team’s leaders - even in my weakest area, which is the high mountains. This time round I’ve told the team that unless it’s really necessary I’m going to take things very differently in the Pyrenees and Alps because there are better climbers than me. If I ease back there more than in 2008, I should be stronger on the flatter stages, which is where I can really shine and I can do my job for Denis and Oscar, protecting them as best I can!
When I’m not racing I’ve brought a book by [Chilean] Robert Bolaño, called “2066.” It’s about a student who’s a poet, set in Mexico. It’s funny because when [team-mate] Pedro [Horrillo] was in hospital after his terrible crash in the Tour of Italy he’d been reading this book just before hand. Then after the crash, he was a bit delirious and he kept on telling me his ward was full of noisy Mexicans. When I pointed out to him that this could have been because he had been reading a book about Mexico, he admitted that could have been true!
Apart from that, I’ve also brought the latest issue of a bike magazine which has articles about [former cyclist] Robert Millar, which is a good read.
The Tour reaches my home town of Barcelona in the middle of next week, but I’ll have to stay in the team hotel. Although I’ll get some family visits, they won’t bring me any more books: with this one I’ve got enough to go all the way to Paris!
All of us on the team think a lot about Pedro, even in the Tour. The latest reports I have are that he’s doing better, but it’s going slowly. He’s taking it on the day by day—just like we are in the Tour.