 |
| |
|
 |
 |
 |
Back in the saddle World road champion Freire happy to take 2nd Tour stagePosted: Monday July 08, 2002 11:13 AMUpdated: Monday July 08, 2002 1:47 PM SAARBRUECKEN, Germany (Reuters) -- World champion Oscar Freire proved his Mapei team chiefs correct when he won the second stage of a Tour de France that he did not want to enter. "That's right. I did not want to come because I did not feel in great shape," said the 26-year-old Spaniard from Torrelavega. "[Belgian team mate] Tom Steels was in great shape, too, and I felt the team did not need another sprinter. "I wanted to concentrate on the end-of-season classics. But my team insisted for me to come. I came, and I won," he added. Since his unexpected victory in the 1999 world road championships, a feat he repeated last year, Freire has been restricted by a lingering back problem. In 1999 he only raced 32 days while in 2000 he managed 10 victories in just 48 days in the saddle. Last year his back pains forced him to stop competing after he finished third in the Milan-San Remo classic. Freire saw 30 doctors throughout Europe before he found a relatively simple cure in the United States. "The solution was to stretch every morning before the start, and that's what I do," he said. His first victory in his first Tour was all the sweeter as it came in Germany, home of Erik Zabel, the most respected sprinter in the bunch. "It was Zabel's stage, and I followed him closely. In the final stretch, [Australian Robbie] McEwen came close so I decided to take risks and I won," said Freire. "But it is such a pleasure to beat Zabel in his own land. He also beat me more than once in the Vuelta.' Freire, who nearly had his foot amputated when he was two, is something of a rarity in his homeland where climbers tend to dominate the sport. As a result, he turned pro in the Belgo-Italian Mapei team, earning the nickname of "Van den Freire." "It's true that there is not a tradition for sprinters in Spain. I don't know if I will one day race for a Spanish team but for the time being, my interest is to ride abroad," he said. Another win in Tuesday's third stage to Reims would bring him a 20-seconds bonus that would be enough to put him in the overall lead and become the first yellow jersey holder from Spain since Miguel Indurain in 1995.
"We'll see tomorrow. It all depends on the team tactics and
whether Steels wants to win that stage," he said.
|
|
|||||||||
|
|||||||||||
