Second in yesterday’s time trial, six seconds behind the race leader and surprise winner Daniele Bennati, David Millar has pledged to ride aggressively in today’s 181.1 kilometre stage from Angers to Pre-en-Pail. The Scottish rider looked for a long time as being the likely winner of the race against the clock, but his wait in the hot seat ended in disappointment when Bennati pulled out the best time trial performance of his career.
Millar and Garmin-Cervélo team-mate Dave Zabriskie took second and third, both practically the same time behind Bennati. While the team didn’t succeed in taking its second victory of the day [Michael Kreder outsprinted Bennati to win the morning road stage], it is well positioned to strike, in that the two riders are the closest rivals to the Italian.
However they are sixteen seconds back in the general classification, and Millar knows that Garmin-Cervélo must ride very aggressively if it is to capitalise and depose the race leader. He vows that they will do so.
“I think everybody is going to attack today. It's pretty tight in general and on a stage like today, it's interesting,” he told Velochrono.fr. “I am in good condition. Our team is strong, unlike that of Bennati. So we will attack them.”
The time trial specialist has had a wait to reach form, due to a double bout of illness in the early season. He wasn’t in the same condition as last year and made the decision to miss the cobbled Classics. And even though he doesn’t believe he is near top form just yet, he was satisfied with yesterday’s performance.
“I rode well. I'm glad. I tried to win the race,” he said. “I did it thoroughly to prepare myself for the next targets. I'm still happy with the result.”
The French 2.1-ranked event finishes tomorrow, giving Garmin-Cervélo two shots at nabbing overall victory.