Tour de Romandie – Stage 1 – Rik Verbrugghe «It is up to us now to be active every day»

The suspense was total until the final team crossed the finish line of the first stage of the Tour of Romandie.  Tied at the midpoint and practically equal on time near the end, Sky and Orica-GreenEdge finished within the same second at the Juraparc finishing line.  But finally Geraint Thomas of the British Sky team was awarded the honor of wearing the yellow jersey at the start of the stage from Apples to Saint-Imier with a difference of only a few hundredths of a second separating the teams.  IAM Cycling managed to finish strongly in the top half of the 18 teams involved.  By losing only 24 seconds to the winners, Mathias Frank and his teammates have certainly accomplished their mission for the day.

Manager sportif for the Swiss team, Rik Verbrugghe, declared himself on the whole satisfied with his riders.  “For a first team time trial of this level of importance for the year, we have limited the damage.  Of course we are more than 20 seconds down on Sky and Orica, but we have by no means embarrassed ourselves.  But in order to have any ambitions to play for the leader’s jersey or a podium, the guys will have to pull up their socks and get to work.  It is up to us now to be present and active every day to help Mathias Frank hold the IAM Cycling colors high.”  Marcello Albasini, the performance coach for the team, echoed these sentiments.  “We managed to push to the max for this time trial.  We made some small mistakes, but that will just help us know what to correct for future engagements at the Giro and the Tour.  We have not had the benefit of the data that we would have already gathered at the cancelled team time trial at Tirreno.”

Mathias Frank who is IAM Cycling’s leader for this race, was relieved after the 20 kilometer effort.  “I did not feel any discomfort after my crash at Liège-Bastogne-Liège on Sunday.  I am pleased with our performance because all the times after the first two finishers are very tight with few time gaps.  There is room to improve as well, and that is encouraging looking ahead to the Tour de France.  In my opinion, the seconds lost today will not be decisive after Sunday’s individual time trial in Lausanne.”

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