During Friday’s eighteenth stage of the Tour de France Patrick Gretsch was part of a very strong breakaway. Unfortunately, the select group, including seven riders who’d in the past won a Tour stage, didn’t get permission from the peloton to stay away. On the rolling roads between Blagnac and Brive-la-Gaillarde it resulted in a cat-and-mouse game with an average speed of 45.4 kilometers per hour.
On the Côte de Lissac-sur-Couze, the final climb of the day, Gretsch had to let some of his fellow attackers go. The German didn’t see his companions back, but in the end they also lost the battle with the peloton. They saw Mark Cavendish take the win. Gretsch didn’t. He finished as 117th on 04’42”.
“It was a though day”, the 25-year-old German said. “We wanted to show ourselves today, so we needed to have someone in the breakaway. I’m glad I succeeded. With all the strong riders in the group the pace was very high, but I could keep up pretty easily. I proved I’m also a good rider.”
Sprint
In the last kilometer in the semi-wet streets of Brive-la-Gaillarde Koen de Kort joined the sprinters and finished fifteenth. Afterwards the Dutchman admitted he could have done better. “But after the last turn a rider squeezed himself between me and the guy before me and didn’t kept the wheel. I therefore could not really sprint.”
Time trial
Despite his efforts in the Friday stage, time trial specialist Gretsch still expects to do well in Saturday’s 53.3 kilometer long time trial from Bonneval to Chartres. “Normally I try to save my powers on the day before a time trial. This time I didn’t, but I felt really good today. It was a good test. I’m optimistic about tomorrow.”
