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Tour de Europe

July 23, 2010 - Filed under: Rider Blogs

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My last blog I wrote in the Giro, 1,5 week ago. I was planning to write a blog about the end of the Giro as soon as I came home. But of course, I totally forgot. It is actually pretty nice to not think about cycling at all when you're at home for a few days. My only thoughts about cycling were at the moments I was lying on the couch, watching the Tour de France. But my thoughts drift away really soon at these moments and in no-time I'm asleep. Most of the time the commentators start shouting hard enough in the final, so I wake up just before the first riders past the finish. And after these few days in Holland, I packed again for the next stage race: Thuringen Rundfahrt, where I am now. And in a few days I will be in Sweden. So I don't see a lot of the Tour de France because I have my own Tour de Europe.

I will tell you about the last days at the Giro, we had a fantastic second last stage with finish up the Stelvio. Because Claudia and Emma were at 4th and 6th place overall before the stage, we had a tactic of ‘Win or Die'. So Emma and Claudia attacked the other GC riders at this last climb (the Stelvio) one by one. Finally Emma broke away with Mara Abbot, who was wearing the pink jersey. But the Stelvio is long and at the end Abbot managed to drop Emma. Emma finished second and behind her riders passed the finish one by one. Now it was clear that Abbot would win the Giro, and to be honest, she was the strongest climber in this race. The last day we had -like always in the Giro-tradition- a hectic race in the area around Milan. With my last energy I managed to be in the only breakaway of the day, but at the end we had a bunch sprint again. And when Kirsten finally beated Teutenberg (who won all the sprints before) she was beaten this time by the American Olds. Again second! So at the end of this Giro we went home with six second places and a 4th and 5th place overall...

Let's hope we can have some wins this week in Thuringen, with a whole new and fresh team (I'm the only Giro-rider who is also doing Thuringen). To ride here with a brand new Swiss and German champion is already given a lot of motivation. And because it took me three days to write this blog, I can tell already that yesterday Charlotte finished third and today I finished second. So maybe tomorrow we will win... But more import is the World Cup Team Time Trial next week in Sweden, where we really want to kick some ass! So next blog will be in 1,5 week with hopefully some very good news!