Henderson won stage 5 Tour of Southland

Incoming T-Mobile rider Greg Henderson scored a stage win at the Tour of Southland on Wednesday. The Kiwi, who is riding with a composite McIntyre Dick and Partners team, edged out breakaway companion Hayden Roulston (NZl) Cycle Surgery to take the fifth stage of his home tour.        
 
Henderson went into the 88 fifth kilometre stage more than six minutes down on overall leader Aaron Strong but he seized an opportunity when Geoff Burndred made a break thirty kilometres from the finish at Winton. Henderson and good mate Hayden Roulston quickly joined the Rabobank rider and the trio took the lead out to just over a minute.
 
The former track Madison stars offloaded Burndred eight kilometres from the finish and Henderson went on to take the stage win. However, afterwards Henderson played down his stage win and said that he was happy to help out a friend. "He obviously has a chance on GC so being a good friend of mine I'd lay it on the line for him" explained Henderson.
 
Mission accomplished
Henderson, who raced the past season for Health.net in the USA, said prior to the race that his “focus will be on hopefully notching a couple of stage wins and helping my team mates try and win overall GC.”
 
The seven-day Tour (UCI Cat 2.2) continues with its two toughest stages. On Thursday the riders face the 134 km stage from Lumsden to a summit finish in the Crown Mountain range near Queenstown. On Friday they ride the 163 km stage from Winton to the tourist resort at Te Anau.

Source: T-Mobile

Gilling to Tinkoff

Dutch rider Bas Gilling will leave T-Mobile and  joins Italian/Russian team Tinkoff. The 24 year old Dutch rider didn't get a contract extension from T-Mobile and had to look for another team.

Godefroot talks about Vinokourov

Walter Godefroot worked for several years with Alexander Vinokourov at T-Mobile and is now working as an advisor of Vino's Astana squad. Belgian daily sports sportwereld.be talked with Godefroot about this years winner of the Vuelta Espana. Vinokourov managed to reach the final round of the prestigous Belgian cyclist award "Flandrien", after the vote of the Belgian public overruled the panel of experts. The award will go to Alexander Vinokourov, Paolo Bettini or Tom Boonen as they are the three riders who reached the finals.

Godefroot told sportwereld.be: "People like riders who have the courage to attack. With all respect for riders like Valverde and Cancellara, (the colleages that were passed by Vino in the last round of the Flandrien, Cyclingheroes), but they are relativly newcomers. Vino is riding 7 - 8 years in the world top now and confirms it again and again. People love his famous aggressiveness which use to let him finish with his head against the wall every now and than but he improved and knows how to win a race now. The question if he would have been able to manage that in the last Tour de France will always remain open, but the fact that he wasn't even allowed to try, even when he couldn't be blamed of anything brought him a lot of sympathy from the public. That's why i am not surprised that he landed on the Flandrien podium."

Godefroot also talked about Vinokourov's personality: "First there is the language. If i get him on the phone i have to slow him down. Alex calm down! But watch out, he likes to laugh and he isn't the surly Russian as many people think he is.

Godefroot told sportwereld.be Vinokourov is a very social person who feels responsible for cycling in Kazachstan: "He likes most to send old team bikes to Kazachstan were they can be used by young riders. Don't underestimate the way he developed from just another rider from Kazachsten into a star of the cycling world. That alone illustrates his capabilities as an athlete and as a person."