Klöden's long way home

By Susan Westemeyer

After Andreas Klöden won Tirreno-Adriatico, he had a big celebration and a smooth journey home. Well, not really.......

"That same evening, I wanted to fly with some of my teammates from Ancona to Rome to Munich. Shortly before landing in Rome, the flight had to go back to Ancona because of bad weather," he wrote on his website, andreas-kloeden.com.

"The next flight wasn't until the next day at 6 a.m., so we had to spend the night in a hotel. When we got there at midnight, we found out, contrary to what they had previously told us, that there were no rooms available."

"At the next hotel, Mario Kummer, Matthias Kessler, Alexander Vinokourov and I were offered exactly two single rooms and a double room with one small double bed and only one blanket. I ended up spending the next three hours in that bed with 'Matze' Kessler, since we had to leave at 4 a.m. anyway."

"After being on the go for 17 hours - including five hours racing - and only three hours sleep, we all felt awful the next morning and also looked that way. Good thing that there were no photographers around!"