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No. 1 ONCE Beloki leads Tour of Spain as team wins time trialPosted: Saturday September 07, 2002 12:11 PMUpdated: Saturday September 07, 2002 1:30 PM VALENCIA, Spain (Reuters) -- Joseba Beloki led his Spanish ONCE-Eroski team to victory in the opening team time trial of the Tour of Spain on Saturday. ONCE lived up to its billing as favorite for the stage with a time of 26 minutes 21 seconds for the flat, exposed 24.6-kms course to take the first gold jersey of the race. The 2000 Tour of Spain winner Roberto Heras's US Postal team was 14 seconds adrift and Spain's Kelme-Costa Blanca, led by climber Oscar Sevilla, took third place 15 seconds behind.
Last year's winner Angel Casero and his German Team Coast riders turned in a surprisingly below-par performance and trailed 39 seconds behind ONCE. Saeco-Longoni had even worst showing and their Italian leader Gilberto Simoni lost one minute and 13 seconds. The 29-year-old Beloki, who led the race for three days in 2001 before pulling out with a virus and finished second in the 2002 Tour, says he does not know yet if he will try to keep the gold jersey all the way to Madrid. "Tomorrow's stage has a very complicated finale and so long as a team mate is in the lead, I don't mind. "In fact, I think there are five of us in ONCE-Eroski who could win the race overall." "Today has been a team effort, so the jersey belongs to all of ONCE-Eroski, although on a personal level it wipes out the disappointment of last year's abandonment." Beloki's sporting director Manolo Saiz added: "In the long term, putting such a dangerous climber as Simoni at over a minute (behind) in the first stage may prove the most important result of this opening time trial." Clear favorite ONCE, a clear favorite after its victory in the team time trial in the Tour de France in 2002 for the second time in three years and its success in the Tour of Burgos in August, gained most of its advantage in the second half of the stage. In the intermediate time check after 12.5-kms the team was only two seconds faster than Kelme, but then the yellow and black team upped the pace on the uncomplicated run-in through the streets of Valencia. Riding in a single line and taking rapid turns, only two ONCE riders -- Czech Jan Hruska and Spaniard Mikel Pradera -- could not handle the pace set down principally by Beloki's teammates Igor Gonzalez de Galdeano and Mikel Zarrabeitia. However, Hruska's role had been to drive hard in the first part of the course. Kelme, traditionally weak in this speciality, was delighted with third place, although Sevilla was affected by his slight physique, which he said had caused him to "suffer badly just to stay on the back on the second half of the course. "Team time trials are not what I am best at, but now I can wait for the mountains in a strong position." Another favorite, fellow-climber Heras, said he was pleased with his team's performance. "We knew that ONCE-Eroski were the favourites, but I haven't lost as much time as I could have," he said. Casero said he was "not excessively surprised to have lost this time, although you always dream of beating ONCE-Eroski, particularly in my home region of Valencia. "But they have had a considerable period of time to practise
this, and Coast's Tour of Spain lineup has only been training together for two days."
Copyright 2003 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. |
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