Tour de Suisse – Marcello Albasini «The team did a great job»

The 219 kilometer 8^th stage of the Tour of Switzerland finished at the top of the climb to Verbier with Johan Chaves (Orica GreenEDGE) taking the victory.  The Columbian managed to attack a group of favorites to take a solo win a few seconds in front of Roman Kreuziger and Bauke Mollema.  Yielding just 17 seconds, Tony Martin (Omega Pharma-Quickstep) retained his yellow jersey on the eve of the final stage into Saas-Fee.  Arriving in the same time as the German time trial world champion, Mathias Frank pulled back 23 seconds on Tom Dumoulin, and can hope to leap onto a podium step by the end of the race Sunday night.

As directeur sportif for IAM Cycling along with Kjell Carlström, Marcello Albasini took off his hat to the riders who covered the long stage with more than a 42 km/h average speed.

“The team has done a great job.  We were determined to play for the win.  Heat and a strong tailwind had an effect on the level of fatigue that already existed after the difficult time trial.  We paced the pack on the early ramps of the climb to Verbier.  Hollenstein, Elmiger, Tschopp, Wyss and Fumeaux got the ball rolling.  Mathias Frank was strong, but he was not strong enough to force the final selection when he attacked with 3 kilometers to go.  However, he did succeed in taking time from Dumoulin, and the stage leading to Saas-Fee will be complicated for many more riders because of the heat and the climbs in store.”

Mathias Frank was able to feel satisfied with his day when he returned to the team bus after having collected the jersey for the best Swiss rider in the race.

“All the guys went the limit to help me enter the Verbier climb in the best possible position.  With 3 kilometers to go, I decided to put in my attack, but I did not have good enough legs.  The favorites pulled me back, and then I was missing that extra 300 meters I needed to bridge up to the Kreuziger-Mollema duo.  But I am calm and there are still great opportunities for this last stage leading up to Saas-Fee.  It would be great to finish on the podium at the Tour of Switzerland.”