Michal Kwiatkowski (Omega Pharma-Quick Step) crushed the opposition in yesterday's time trial of the Volta ao Algarve. We have already posted several reactions and have gathered a few more below.

 

Jose Azevedo (sports director Katusha whose best rider was Sergei Chernetskii in 14th)

“The time trial was short and flat, not really something for our GC riders Sergei Chernetckii and Simon Špilak, but they defended their positions excellently. Also Maxim Belkov took a top 20 spot in the stage. Most important thing is that we move closer in the general classification. From position 7 and 9 Sergei and Simon moved up now to 5th and 8th. It was our goal to finish this Tour of Algarve in the front and we will succeed in doing this. Tomorrow is the queen’s stage. It will be hard to beat Michal Kwiatkowski, but it will be a difficult stage for his teammates to control the race. We cannot exclude some surprises for tomorrow on the Alto do Malhão.”

 

Ruben Fernandez (Caja Rural, 28th +0.53)

"It was better than expected. I was good and had a good feeling and now want to see what happens in the queen stage. We are a very young team but we are fighting and we are near the top of the standings. In Andalusia, Luis Leon [Sanchez] is good and Marcos [Garcia] and David [Arroyo] have also done well. It is a pity that Michal [Kwiatkowski] in Algarve and Alejandro [Valverde] in Andalusia are unbeatable. In Algarve, we now have the queen stage. We will see how it goes. We will fight with our best."

 

Omar Fraile (Caja Rural, 42nd +0.59)

"I had good feeling until I had a mechanical. I managed to save the day and am just 10 seconds shy of the top 10. I see that Ruben is good and very helpful and I think he will play a great role. We are a young team and working very well. We are all fighting in both our races but Kwiatkowski and Valverde are fantastic."

 

Jaime Garzon (sports director Caja Rural whose best rider was Ruben Fernandez in 28th)

"We have had a fairly technical time trial in the end and that has helped us to do a good race. From the first day, we have tried to put two riders in the top 10 and without Omar's mechanical, we would surely have had it. The team shows that it is at a high level and you have to remember that it is a very young squad. Now it is time for the queen stage, let's see how it goes. The team proves its worth, performing well both in Andalusia and here."

 

Alex Sans Vega (sports director NetApp-Endura whose best rider was Jan Barta in 6th)

“We can be satisfied with this result considering the competition here. It's a good result for Jan, especially so early in the season – until now, he has always scored his best results later in the season.

 

 

“It was a very fast course that travelled in just one direction and with a tailwind the entire time. It only became very technical during the final three kilometres. As a result, the stronger riders were able to use all their power.

 

“Since we can no longer score anything big in terms of the overall results, tomorrow we’ll just try to have a good result for the day. Two years ago, Tiago [Machado] placed second for this stage. Of course, we’re hoping he’ll be able to come up with a similar result again tomorrow."