September 11/08 8:49 am - Tour of Missouri: Stage 4 report, Interviews with Svein Tuft and Michael Barry, full results

Posted by Editoress on 09/11/08
 

Tour of Missouri
Report courtesy Tour of Missouri

Photos by Tom Evans

Photos by Amy Smolens

Stage 4 started under overcast skies in the town of Lebanon where all the school kids got the morning off to enjoy the exciting race start. With Michael Rogers (Aus) in second overall by just 21 seconds, Team Columbia wasted no time getting the race underway. Launching attack after attack, Columbia worked on wearing down Christian Vandevelde (USA) and his Team Garmin-Chipotle. About halfway into the race, Rogers joined a ten-man breakaway and won the Ft. Leonard Wood sprint, earning a 3-second time bonus. Roger's great escape, however, was short lived as Team Garmin-Chipotle and Toyota-United eventually closed the gap.

Keeping the pressure on, Team Columbia attacked again followed closely by Garmin-Chipotle forming a front group of 20, that quickly built up a 2-minute gap on the weary peloton. From that group, Michael Barry (Can) of Team Columbia went off the front with Jeff Louder (USA) of BMC. Barry dropped Louder as he charged into Bolla for the three finishing circuits and took the stage solo with just under a minute gap on the hard charging peloton. Eric Baumann (Ger) of Team Sparkasse won the hotly contested field sprint ahead of Danilo Wyss (Sui) of BMC Racing. Vande Velde came in 4th, preserving his position as race leader.

Interviews with Svein Tuft and Michael Barry
by Amy Smolens

Symmetrics' Svein Tuft began the day in 3rd overall, thanks to his fine 3rd place ride in yesterday's hilly Branson Time Trial. He sat behind only Garmin's Christian Vandevelde and Columbia's Michael Rogers on GC, and was one spot ahead of Columbia's George Hincapie. The profile of today's 95-mile stage from Lebanon to Rolla had plenty of bumps so promised to hold many challenges. I spoke to Svein as he was pinning his number on his jersey:

Amy Smolens: George Hincapie's 19 seconds behind you on the GC, is that a worry to you?

Svein Tuft: Well, it's more of a worry to Garmin, I think. If he's going to do anything that big he's going to get more time than that - I don't think the onus is going to be put on us. We'll be watching guys and trying not to let anything ridiculous go. But I think if he's going to be able to put a threat like that on me he's going to put a threat on (overall leader Christian) Vandevelde. So the lion's share of the load is on them. Yeah, we'll be looking around and paying attention but it's up to Garmin, really.

AS And if it all ends up together, Pinner's been getting closer and closer to the podium.

ST:Exactly, he's getting the sprints figured out here and seeing how those guys roll it. So I think as long as he can be taken care of in the last couple, 5k coming in and just dropped off, he's really good at freelancing! Hopefully we can have a few guys there with him and keep him moving up and in a good position for the final bit.

AS I just walked by the big Garmin bus and the big Columbia bus, and here you are with your cars and vans. Do you guys feel like The LIttle Engine That Could?

ST:Ah, we've always been like that so it's no different for us. We race and do our thing so it's not a big upset for us.

AS Does it make you field pretty confident that you're 3rd on GC and in that company on the podium?

ST:Oh, for sure. Our team's worked for a few years now to be at this level and I think now this is just a sure sign of where we're at - we can race with all these guys with budgets ten, twenty times what we're rolling on, even more than that - I don't even know what some of these guys - I think that bus (pointing to the Garmin-Chipotle team bus) is far over our whole year's team budget! I don't think it really makes a difference, it's all about the way you operate as a team and function out on the road. We're a real family unit and it just shows the way we ride, It doesn't matter what happens to us and everything else going on, we just do our thing, we're here to race hard and that's what we're doing.

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After Columbia's super-sprinter Mark Cavendish won Stages 1 and 2 earlier this week, Michael Barry picked up where Cavendish had left off with a rare stage victory for him. Part of a select 18-rider break (including the Yellow Jersey) which split into a 4-man group, Barry attacked the group of four and only BMC's Jeff Louder could follow. With seven miles to go, the Toronto native dropped his last remaining breakaway companion and soloed to victory. Normally cast in the role of domestique and team worker, Barry picked up his first race victory since 2005, when he won a stage of the Österreich-Rundfahrt as a member of Discovery Channel!

Amy Smolens: You always work so hard for Cavendish, Hincapie, Rogers - how gratifying is it for you to have a chance to win a stage yourself?

Michael Barry: Yeah, it feels really good. I mean I take a lot of pleasure and I really enjoy helping the other guys, they're good guys and I think when we win, whether it's Mark or whoever, the whole team celebrates and feels good about it. This isn't just a victory for myself, but for the team. It feels good for me but I'm really pleased for the team as well. We've been racing well as a team since the start of the year and we have an incredibly good group of guys on the team where everybody races selflessly - I think most of the guys on the team have won races at this point. We all work together and we have a really good time - in the hotels we're always the last guys at the dinner table, laughing and joking and we have a good ambiance on the team and that's carried us a long way this year and we have the ball rolling. Each stage on the bus we talk about the race and what we're gonna do and we just go out there and try to win every time - today was a great example. The team never relented the whole time, we never gave up. It was an extremely hard race and everyone was just attacking constantly to put the pressure on Garmin and the other teams so we blew the race to pieces. It was a tough race for everyone, it was fun racing, we're having a good time!

AS Michael Rogers did pick up some bonus seconds from Vandevelde early on but once his break was caught did you feel that maybe it was an opportunity for you?

MB: Yeah, we're going to keep chipping away at it. I mean bike racing is just keeping the pressure on the other teams the whole day. We each took our shot today and everybody was on the limit and it started to split.

AS At some point toward the end did you see Jeff Louder weakening and decide to attack him?

MB:Yeah, I mean I started pulling with him when the gap got down to 1:30, we had 1:45 at one point and I couldn't really pull at that point because he was fairly close on the General Classification ahead of me (2:25 out of the lead and a threat for the podium) and so once the gap came down then I just started pulling and I noticed he was weaker. We were going up a little rise and he couldn't hold my wheel so that was it.

AS And from then on it was home free...

MB:I knew once we were on the (two finishing) circuits I had a better chance because it's harder to close gaps on circuits then it is on the open road. I felt good - I just tried to keep my speed high, my wattage consistent, keep pushing and try not to think about the guys coming up from behind, just try and think about the finish line and winning.

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Svein Tuft finished in the select Yellow Jersey group in 7th on the day, so retained his third place on GC. Early in the day he grabbed a one-second time bonus, so now sits 43 seconds behind Vandevelde and 20 seconds ahead of Hincapie. I caught up with a chatty Svein while his Symmetrics teammates enjoyed their post-race chocolate milks:

Amy Smolens: You were able to keep an eye on the guys you needed to and even picked up a one-second time bonus, to boot - it all went well out there for you, didn't it?

Svein Tuft: Yeah, it was a sufferfest out there. Early on (I) got in a bit of a move, it looked like Garmin had their work cut out for them today and it looked like they were getting put through the wringer! So actually Michael (Barry) hit out and I just kind of kept rolling and all of a sudden Pinotti came up and a few others, and then we were rolling super hard and it didn't really stay away. And then when that final move went it was just one of those things where we just rolled on a really hard false flat section and yeah, we just keep going. Columbia was just hitting out on those guys and I'm really happy that Michael won the stage because again, that guy's such a classy rider. It just shows that team's so stacked with talent that a guy with that kind of ability is still working so hard! And the previous couple of days he's been the guy on the front! So now is he just shows the calibre of rider he is winning today on a hard, hard day - someone was telling me 6000 feet of climbing. That's brutal, it was just relentless and when that move went it was go time. And coming into the circuits was just a sufferfest.

AS And what do you expect from the next couple of days? Was today the toughest road stage of the race?

ST:I have no idea now! I mean, today really didn't look terrible on the profile but it was quite difficult! Yeah, I think today kind of sorted some things out a little more, now there are some proper gaps but still the top three, four is quite tight so I mean the job's cut out, I just gotta watch those guys. I mean I was able to do it today so hopefully I can keep at it.

AS Thanks, go get some chocolate milk.

ST:Yeah, I did actually, I already pounded one - that's it boys, that's it!