A day after losing his overall lead to Oscar Sevilla, Michael Rasmussen fought back with a second place finish in the Vuelta a Chihuahua. The Danish rider was only beaten by Spaniard Daniel Moreno (Caisse d'Epargne) but Sevilla remained in yellow.
Despite the good result Rasmussen was not a happy man. "Yesterday [stage 3] we did a tactical mistake. That really annoyed me. The team didn't have the strongest rider in the break. That I am the strongest in our team I proved today again," Rasmussen said on the organizer's website.
Rasmussen's jab was targeted at teammate Gregorio Ladino, who was in the race's decisive break yesterday. A group of four reached the finish more than seven minutes ahead of the peloton. Rasmussen and others are out of the overall, but Ladino was in second place then, three seconds behind Sevilla.
In today's fourth stage, Sevilla finished third and added another three seconds against Ladino, expanding his overall lead to six seconds.
Sevilla was happy with the way things turned out. "The stage was very hard, but we have a great team that controlled things very well, especially with a Mancebo who was riding superbly."
There are only two ore stages remaining and both are rather flat, so chances for a Sevilla overall victory look good.