Content with first day in the mountains, expects fireworks en route to Morzine-Avoriaz
After the first foray into the mountains, Saxo Bank's Andy Schleck can look back at his position with some satisfaction. Heading into the two crucial Alpine stages over the next three days, Schleck sits in 4th overall, 1:55 behind new leader, Sylvain Chavanel, but more importantly, only 30 seconds behind World Champion Cadel Evans - the only general classification contender in front of him on the overall.
Schleck confirmed that today was always going to be a day of observation amongst the heads of state. Schleck gave a nod to Armstrong and Contador in his post-stage comments and said they looked "really good" and even joked that he hoped his rivals thought he looked good as well.
"Of course everyone is watching each other. But you know, Lance looked really good, Alberto looked really good, I hope they'd say the same about me. Nobody really attacked, today wasn't going to be decisive...I had never planned to attack today, but I took the stage to study my rivals, and they have undoubtedly done the same."
Schleck, looking good in his now familiar white jersey, was apparently in a good mood following the stage and joked: "I looked around, and I tried to find weaknesses, but I couldn't find any."
The two-time winner of the Tour de France's best young rider award was happy to be back in white, but is lusting for a more summery shade of jersey: "I am very happy to have the white jersey, but I hope to get another color in the coming days.
Though the stage did little to clarify the top spots on GC, Schleck admitted that he was surprised by just how difficult the day turned out to be, conceding that the day's difficulties were a surprise, because he had not previewed Stage 7, instead focusing on the rigors to come in Stages 8 and 9.
"Already today, to be honest, I didn't expect it to be this hard. It was really hard with the heat. I didn't expect that for today…During my preparations, I concentrated on the two Alpine stages, which start tomorrow, so I did not even know the challenges we faced today. It really surprised me that today was so demanding, but all in all, it went quite well."
Overall, Saxo Bank looked a bit weak, as the team put only one other rider into the group of favorites, Chris Anker Sorensen. Jakob Fuglsang suffered a bad day, but so did the rest of the team's stalwarts, including Fabian Cancellara. No one was sure what to expect from Cancellara in Stage 7, but in the end, it turned out to be a bad day. Cancellara's bad day could end up being a good thing for Andy though, as all attention and energy will now be focused on his efforts - something Schleck confirms: "Fabian did not have a good day, but now it's my turn to play."
The stage went more or less to plan as Andy Schleck saw it, but the lack of an effort from Cadel Evans's BMC team was eyebrow raising to Luxembourg's time trial champion: "Actually, I had predicted that it would be Cadel Evans who would take over the lead, but it looked like his BMC team was not interested in working for it. Why, I do not know, but it was a little strange."
Looking ahead to tomorrow's day to Morzine-Avoriaz, Schleck knows that the watching will cease, and the real racing will begin. Schleck sees only one rider that needs watching though, a certain two-time Tour de France champion.
"My position is pretty good right now. I'm pretty sure that tomorrow we will see Alberto attacking. I will be there to follow him, and we will see if I can stay with him."