‘Mission accomplisched’ for Gretsch in Tour de France prologue
Patrick Gretsch finished eighth in the prologue of the Tour de France. Beforehand he had hoped for a place in the top ten. He succedeed in that objective.
On the 6.4k course through downtown Liège, Gretsch clocked a time of seven minutes and 25 seconds. The time trial specialist was only twelve seconds slower than winner Fabian Cancellara.
“I‘m very pleased with this result”, Gretsch said afterwards. “This is the Tour de France. The best riders in the world are here. A top ten place is super nice. The goal was to finish as high as possible and I succeeded. I could not have gone any faster. So, mission accomplished.”
Unfortunately for Gretsch he missed the best young rider jersey by an inch. Tejay Garderen was only two seconds faster than the 25-year-old German and will on Sunday start in the white jersey. “That’s unfortunate, but nothing more. In the top thirty there are only good riders.”
Marcel Kittel was one of the first riders to start his prologue. He notched up a time of seven minutes and 34 seconds. A good time, because for quite a while the German sprinter, at junior level an excellent time trialist, was in the top twenty. Eventually he had to settle for 25th place.
“Marcel’s performance makes the good feeling complete”, Gretsch stated. “The whole team is happy. The Tour has just begun and we have already shown ourselves at the front. This gives us confidence for the next days.”
