Tour de France – Stage 6 – Jérôme Coppel – The stage was less nervous even if the final had its share dangers, and I still need a few days to recover –

Today’s 6^th stage of the Tour de France was marked by a long breakaway languishing under the sun and then punctuated by a late, unfortunate crash of the yellow jersey, Tony Martin.  Zdenek Stybar (Etixx-Quickstep), who often plays the part of perfect teammate for Martin, managed to take advantage of the confusion and finish a few meters ahead of a fast charging peloton led by Peter Sagan.  For its part, IAM Cycling remained attentive even throughout the fracas at the line.  Well protected by Matthias Brändle Reto Hollenstein, Sylvain Chavanel, and Martin Elmiger all day, Mathias Frank finished the stage in 19^th position, retaining his 24^th place overall.

Jérôme Coppel, himself a victim of crashes the day before into Amiens, and having suffered an injured wrist in the Tour of the Basque Country, was pleased to have met his goals for this transition stage.  “The stage was less nervous even if the final had its share dangers, and I still need a few days to recover.”

“Today was pretty okay as far as the pain from my injuries is concerned, even if we were racing very fast.  But everything went smoothly.  Now we still have to be sure to assert ourselves and stay alert for the next two stages before the team time trial, where we really have a great opportunity.  The objective will be to gain positions in the general classification for Mathias Frank before we attack the Pyrenees next week.”

For his part, Rik Verbrugghe, the manager sportif for IAM Cycling, was relieved not to have had any ill luck hit the team as a result of the crash that came at the end of a stage that had been reserved for the puncheurs: “Put it down to bad luck because the crash happened in a straight line.  It could happen to anyone.  But we luckily avoided the worst.  Hard to say if we actually missed a good shot to win, but I don’t think that the guys who were in 20^th position were in a position to go for the win.  Many things can happen in the final kilometer of a race.  Now we have one eye on the team time trial.  We have been far from being immune to crashes in the past days.  The emphasis now will be on recovery first.  And I hope that we will be able to be back to our best for the team time trial.”