Joaqu?m Rodriguez, Caisse d’Epargne, is no longer first overall in the 31st edition of the Tour of Burgos after the stage of the day (Burgos-Burgos- 175 kilometers) finished in the sprint. The Belgian rider from team Top Sport Vlaanderen, Nikolas Maes, was the fastest ahead of Alexei Markov and Ben Hermans.
A crash happened in the final of the race and as a consequence the bunch was broken in different parts and in spite of the fact that the incident occurred in the final two kilometers the commissaires did not give the same time to the entire bunch. Joaqu?m Rodr?guez is now second overall 3 seconds behind the new leader Ben Hermans.
“We are of course really disappointed”, explained Jos? Luis Jaimerena, team manager of the team Caisse d’Epargne in the Tour of Burgos. “Today it was our turn to control the race. We did it without many difficulties but anyway this meant plenty of work for the team. Many breakaways animated the stage but we never let the gap with the breakers be too big. All the riders of the team did exactly what was expected from him at the point that our rhythm was so high that the bunch broke in different parts. Tomorrow will be an important stage with a 15 kilometers time trial. I don’t think there will be big gaps but the general ranking could change anyway. Let’s hope that a rider belonging to our team, Joaqu?m Rodriguez or Alejandro Valverde will make s that the leadership comes back to us.”
