For a long time, things were looking good for the Rabo-team in the Tour de France's tenth stage. Juan Antonio Flecha on the most important escape of the day, no rivals for the yellow jersey on the attack and therefore a 'calm' stage for Michael Rasmussen who had six team mates nearby. Erik Dekker, who had been in the car behind Flecha and his fellow escapees for the entire course, also felt it went "by the book. But a perfect situation can sometimes change completely." And that is exactly what happened. Dekker:
"Flecha suddenly had nothing left in the finale. Without any omens. The lights just went out all of a sudden."

Gone were the chances for the stage victory and Dekker had not expected that. The Spanish cyclist himself had not either. He told his team manager that he was feeling good shortly before the race was broken wide open in the lead group. "He had sized up the other guys and felt that he had a chance. The others must have been afraid of Flecha because he is not someone you want to be in a finale with." On the first of the final two climbs, Jens Voigt was the first one to go and at that point, Flecha already could not
keep up. Dekker: "He did come back, but that turned out to be nothing more than the last spasms."

The disappointment in the team was not very big. Dekker obviously knew that "the yellow sooths many pains. But he is very disappointed himself, of course. He was in the lead group in the finale and then he breaks like that. But he was beaten by better cyclists. He could not achieve anything more today." Flecha did not hide in the escape, even though he could have legitimately done so. It is an unwritten rule that cyclists from the same team as the yellow jersey do not cooperate in an escape. So at first, Flecha did not do that. And that made sense, according to Erik Dekker. "Those guys took off when Michael Rasmussen was urinating. Well, and than Flecha jumped along because he happened to be up front. That he laid low to size up the situation was the logical thing to do."

Flecha participated normally later on but he was not strong enough in the end. "Maybe last week cost him too much energy. Maybe yesterday, because he dug deep then too for a while. Who knows," said Erik Dekker, who is not afraid that the escape has cost the all-rounder too much energy for the coming days. "They were not cycling that fast up front. And you also lose a lot of strength by just cycling along with the pack."

Beforehand, the other team manager, Erik Breukink, had also hoped for the scenario that was played out in this classic transition stage and which had no downsides for the team. Three cyclists were held back by the driver of the first pursuing car. "There is quite a difference between defending the yellow jersey in a stage like this as compared to a heavy mountain stage. For that we have Denis Menchov, Thomas Dekker, and Michael Boogerd so they were only allowed to help if we got into really big troubles." And those big troubles never came.

Tour de France: CSC recap stage 10

Jens Voigt went on the attack in 10th stage of Tour de France, where Team CSC's German made the decisive break during the 229-kilometer route from Tallard to Marseille. This provided Team CSC with a first place in the Team's Competition with a margin of over five minutes down to Caisse d'Epargne and Discovery Channel in second and third place.

Voigt was in good spirits after the stage and not too disappointed with his result.

"No, it wasn't a waste of time at all. It never is, when you're part of the action. First of all it gave us some valuable time for the Team's Competition and we now have a margin of over five minutes, second it provided the team with some well-earned attention. If you don't try, you don't get," said Voigt and continued:

"I was close to winning though. Maybe I was lacking that last bit at the end, but it was close. Who knows, I might get another shot later on – I'll definitely give it a go!"

"Almost all our riders apart from the ones at the top of the general classification took it in turns attacking today and the team made a great effort and worked brilliantly together. So it was a coincidence that it happened to be me, who made the break. We might get someone else in another one tomorrow," concluded the hard working German.