Race leader Robert Gesink has said that he is worried about several riders heading into tomorrow’s time trial, the closest being BMC Racing’s Steve Morabito, who is 36 seconds off the yellow jersey and ready for a big time trial performance tomorrow.
Morabito is Swiss so the motivation is obvious. He won a mountain stage of the Tour de Suisse to Leukerbad in 2006 and would love more success in the event. Additionally, his team sponsor hails from the same country and an overall victory would be huge. It would also be a nice response after the team was not invited to last year’s event.
Thus far, the squad has picked up two stage wins thanks to Marcus Burghardt, who triumphed on Wednesday and Friday and holds the points classification lead, while Mathias Frank heads the mountains and intermediate sprints classifications.
“Today was a small Amstel, and with really bad weather at the start, it was not an easy day,” said Morabito on Saturday evening. “I managed to stay to the front and not lose time. I am pretty happy and confident to start the time trial tomorrow in third place. It is a big thing for me.”
What would be even bigger is if he managed to take the final victory. He didn’t want to make any predictions but he’s certainly hoping that things work out well.
“I don’t know how it will go,” he stated. “I am going to give my maximum tomorrow. If I have good legs, I can have a good TT. But it's the last day… it is not only the technique but how fresh you are that determines if you can make a difference.
“Today I lost some energy in order to stay at the front. I have tired legs, but I think it is the same for everybody.”
