Mont Ventoux: SZMYD!!

In today's stage of the Mont Ventoux 4 men (Arrieta,Kern,Alan Perez and Willems) escaped from the group after 35 kms of race. On the Mont Ventoux lots of riders attacked and at a certain point Szmyd,Basso,Valverde and Haimar Zubeldia managed to gain time on the group of the best riders and caught Arrieta,who was alone a la tété de la course (the other riders of the breakaway had already been dropped by the Ag2r rider).
Then Valverde and Szmyd left the others behind and started climbing together.They both rode very well and soon gained more than a minute on the "leader group",which included Scaring Eyebrows Evans (S.E.E.),Contador, Moncoutié,Gesink,Nibali,Fuglsang,V.Efimkin and Millar.
Moncoutié,Efimkin,Nibali and Gesink often tried attacking and Jakob Fuglsang was just amazing: he attacked so many times!! Every time Nibali tried to attack,S.E.E. was immediately behind him.And behind S.E.E.,there was always Contadorus Rex.

Soon Valverde and Szmyd gained nearly 2 minutes of advantadge on the other riders.At the last km,I was really hoping for Szmyd to win the stage: he's a rider I really do like,he's always been a great helper for his captain and,before of this afternoon,he had never won a race.

With few meters to go, the Polish gregario had a bad moment.A very nice Valverde waited for him and Szmyd managed to win the stage.

The Caisse d'Epargne rider instead took the leader jersey from Cadel Evans,who arrived 6th.Third was Zubeldia,4th was Gesink and 5th was the amazing Jakob Fuglsang.I think this boy will win a great race soon.

Anyway,here's what the riders said after the race:
Szmyd:"I often joke that I ride the Giro d'Italia in preparation to the Dauphiné, which is the race I like the most along with the Tour of Romandie". "At the Grand Tours I'm always busy riding for my captains. It has been for Damiano Cunego and Gilberto Simoni, and now it's for Ivan Basso and Franco Pellizotti.I knew this climb was a good one for me(ndr;the Polish rider already finished 2nd on this climb 2 years ago),so this morning we made a plan with Basso,who is also my roommate".
Talking about what happened in the last meters,Szmyd (who got the first victory of his career this afternoon) said:"Valverde and I didn't speak or anything,it was an automatic agreement.As I was almost sure to win, I became stressed out. I had the feeling I might throw up. My legs simply stopped. I told myself, 'you have to do it'. Eventually,I caught Valverde who behaved as a lord of cycling".

The lord of cycling (Valverde) said:"The stage win isn't exactly a gift,Szmyd had the legs for winning.I thanked him for his cooperation.We are both sportsmen."

Scaring Eyebrows Evans instead complained because he found no cooperation in the chase."It was bizarre,it seems like not many people want to win the Dauphiné.When you add the headwind to the yellow jersey,it's not easy to climb the Mont Ventoux.I expected more from Contador."
Valverde,who is an intelligent person,answered Evans' complaints by saying that Contador is warming up for the Tour and is racing at Dauphine Libéré because he just wants to test himself in the TT.Then,he added that the GC leader was Cadel Evans,so it was logical that Scaring Eyebrows had to take the responsibility of the chase today.

Anyway,tomorrow stage will be another hard one: the riders will climb the Izoard and arrive in Briançon,like they did in the Giro 2007.In that occasion,the victory went to Di Luca while second came Andy Schleck.
(Photos by Reuters,Tim De Waele and ABC Sport)