Insight from past stage 9 winner

July 13, 2008

Courtesy of letour.fr, here is a dispatch giving some background on why the 2007 winner of this stage isn’t racing the Tour this year.

The winner of the stage to Le Grand Bornand in the 2007 Tour, Linus Gerdemann, is not in the race this year because he is still recovering from a nasty leg fracture sustained in a crash during the time trial of Tirreno-Adriatico in March. The German who led the 2007 Tour for a day is, however, back on the bike. He rode the col de Peyresourde yesterday despite pouring rain and cold temperatures.
He was in Lourdes last night and told LeTour.fr that he is recovering well from the injury. “I’m back on the bike and training well,” said Gerdemann. “I even rode the climbs for stage nine in the rain and felt pretty good. But it was really cold! I was doing some interviews with German television and was happy to be there but when it got to six degrees, I started thinking that perhaps the home trainer would be a better option.”

You can find a lot more about the Tour de France at that site. They’re the most reliable of all the sites I use for research about the Tour.