Although he finished in the front part of the peloton in today’s second stage of Tirreno-Adriatico, Rabobank’s Lars Boom saw his pale blue leader’s jersey slip off his shoulders and on to those of stage winner Tyler Farrar (Garmin-Cervélo). The 10-second time bonus on the line saw the American leapfrog the 9-second deficit that Rabobank had taken over Garmin-Cervélo in the team time trial; for the Dutch team’s sports director Nico Verhoeven though, this is no bad thing.
“It means less publicity for the team,” he conceded, “but for the overall chances of our leader Robert Gesink it’s not a bad thing. The team can now focus entirely on him.”
With Javier Llorent Aramendia (Euskaltel-Euskadi), Leonardo Giordani (Farnese Neri-Vini Sottoli) and Olivier Kaisen (Omega Pharma-Lotto) off the front for much of the day, it fell to the Rabobank team to keep them in check and prevent them from taking too much time. With Boom having little ambition overall, this was a waste of energy for the team’s domestiques before they’re needed later in the race.
"You know, that when the sprinters not long away from the finish you can stick to them, but when three men were away up the road it was still our responsibility. Rick Flens and Maarten Wynants have ridden 140 kilometres on the front. That has used a lot of power and they will still feel that on Friday. Without the leader's Jersey, we can now wait a little longer; this is not inconvenient for that duo."
Rabobank came to Tirreno-Adriatico with sprinter Oscar Freire, with the three-time World champion looking to build form for an attempt at a fourth victory in next weekend’s Milano-Sanremo. While the Spainsh sprinter has shown a good turn of speed already this season with two victories in last month’s Ruta del Sol, he decided to sit out today’s Tirreno sprint.
"It was probably not his day,” admitted Verhoeven, “but Oscar still chooses to ride on. Saturday already looks much better."