Garmin-Cervélo time trial specialist goes all out in the mountain time trial to prepare for the flat one on the final day
Very few riders outside the top of the overall classification looked as though they put as much into today’s mountain time trial as David Millar (Garmin-Cervélo). The former British champion rode all out on the 12.7km test, and took several minutes to recover from the effort in the team area just past the finish line.
Millar just missed out on the provisional best time, and went on to finish in 24th place on the stage, just 1’56” behind winner Alberto Contador (Saxo Bank-SunGard). Despite this strong performance though, he had in mind victory in a different time trial stage altogether.
“There was no way I was going to win that, I weigh 80 kilos!” he laughed to VeloNation after he had composed himself. “But I wanted to go as hard as I could, just as good preparation for Sunday: same sort of effort; same time; give my body a little test run.”
With three tough stages back to back before the rest day, and now today’s mountain test, out of the way, the rest of the Giro looks, on paper, less tough; this though, says Millar, will remain to be seen.
“It all depends how we make the race,” he explained, “you can race hard and make it mega… It was all really hard last week, especially for the GC [General Classification – ed] riders. They don’t have one day to relax next week, which is demanding, not only physically, but psychologically; so I’m glad I’m not doing GC!
“If you’re not doing GC it’s actually not a bad week,” he added, “because we can just sit up and just kind of take it easy and wait for the gruppetto on the last climb.”
Millar’s Giro has been a good one, in terms of personal results. He spent two days in the pink jersey at the beginning of the race, although one of those was neutralised in tribute to Wouter Weylandt, who was tragically killed on stage three, and has featured in a number of breaks since then.
While he doesn’t rule out further attacks in the race, staying as fresh as possible for the final stage in Milan is his main priority.
“Maybe [I’ll attack] tomorrow,” he said. “But tomorrow will be the only day as I want to take it easy on the way to the time trial.”
With his personal successes in the race, and the tragedy of Weylandt’s death, Millar has had a very emotional race on a number of levels.
“It’s the Giro,” he said. “It was tragic about Wouter; that was such a rare occurrence, it hit everybody quite hard; it may have solidified the peloton a little bit, more than we were before, it brought us a bit closer together.
“I hope that we can build something on that, and credit Wouter for that.”
While he is not a GC contender himself, Millar can watch the battle for the pink jersey from afar. Despite the intentions of the Italians Michele Scarponi (Lampre-ISD) and Vincenzo Nibali (Liquigas-Cannondale) though, Millar doubts that either can challenge Contador now.
“No, they can’t touch him,” he said. “He’s on a different level.
“That’s a race for second; that’s it. Contador’s got it wrapped up.”