First year RadioShack professional Daryl Impey had a frustrating Tour de Luxembourg experience, but feels upbeat about the team’s performance and also that of the leader Lance Armstrong, who finished third overall.
“Our boys put on a great race, claiming the team's classification,” he stated. “Also, Lance got third overall, which is great. Especially just before the Tour, he's on track for sure. The best is yet to come.
“The Tour is less than a month a way and looking at the riders who may ride it this year, we're definitely going to have the strongest team.”
Armstrong ended the four day race 30 seconds behind the victor Matteo Carrara (Vacansoleil Pro Cycling Team) and 29 off a rider who will be one of his big Tour de France rivals, Fränk Schleck (Team Saxobank).
In all there were three RadioShack riders in the top ten, with Andreas Klöden and Grégory Rast netting eighth and ninth overall.
Impey had also found himself in the top ten after the prologue, performing strongly there. “Things went well for the first day where I placed 6th in the prologue, which I was happy about,” he wrote on his website. “Our team did great too with Gregy [Rast] coming in third, Lance fifth and Kloedi ninth. We had four guys in the top 10 which was awesome. I felt that things were coming together nicely.”
He dropped 45 seconds the following day, then things really started to go astray on stage three. He and team-mate Sam [Bewley] did a lot of work, then eased back 170 kilometres into the stage. They rolled in to the finish, where they were shocked to hear that they were out of the race. “It was a nightmare hearing we were out of the time cut. Usually races have a 10% cut but it seems in Luxembourg they have their limits and it was 15min to the MAIN peloton (however they decide that), which meant we were one minute off.”
He said that the organisers opened up the roads and the riders spent time weaving in and out of traffic, potentially losing the crucial minute there.
The South African said that he would make sure he checks the route books from this point on, to ensure he knows the time cuts in future.
Impey won the Presidential Tour de Turkey last season, but was brought down on the final stage by Theo Bos. He’s fully recovered and, as his strong prologue ride showed, has plenty of potential.