IAM TDF Stage 10 – Marcel Wyss «I just didn’t have the legs»

The first true summit finish of the 101^st Tour de France ended with a daily double for Vincenzo Nibali (Astana).  One day after losing the yellow jersey, he took the stage victory and recaptured the overall lead at the top of La Planches-des-Belles-Filles.

For its part, IAM Cycling spent a long day in the break with Marcel Wyss vying again for a win.  Unfortunately, Wyss cracked on the final climb and finished in 42^nd place, 7’59” behind the leader.

At the time of analysis, Wyss, who is the best ranked of the IAM Cycling riders, explained what happened.  “I managed to get into the break of the day thanks to the work that the entire team did on the first climb of the day.  Then I tried to manage my efforts because there were still more than 3000 meters of climbing remaining.  But it turned out that today I just didn’t have the legs.  I am really disappointed because I missed out on a great opportunity to show what I can do.  Of course, there will be other chances, but there will not be many more for us this Tour.  I decided to put the effort into the job.”

Sylvain Chavanel came in 50^th place 10’12” behind, and stressed the difficulty and danger of this stage.

“This was the hardest stage since leaving Leeds.  It was only up and down the whole day.  In addition, the roads were wet and dangerous.  I had a scare when Machiado crashed.  I braked to avoid him and went into a grassy strip on the side.  Fortunately there was no gap.  As we were not able to put Marcel Wyss in the first breakaway, we drove the pace to allow him to bridge up subsequently to the main escape group.  Personally, there aren’t too many more stages that suit me well enough to take the victory.  But I will not give up since that is definitely not how I work.”