Czech rider unsure about World Championships start
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Stage 6 winner Roman Kreuziger (Tinkoff-Saxo)
Roman Kreuziger (Tinkoff-Saxo) celebrates his first win in over two years
Roman Kreuziger (Tinkoff-Saxo) wins stage 6
Roman Kreuziger (Tinkoff-Saxo) goes over the first KOM of the day(Image credit: Jonathan Devich epicimages.us)
The most aggressive rider award went to Roman Kreuziger (Tinkoff-Saxo)
Roman Kreuziger scored his first win since the 2013 Amstel Gold Race when he took the stage 6 victory Saturday at the USA Pro Challenge. The result was a symbolic return to form for the rider who for a year fought a biological passport anti-doping case brought against him by WADA and the UCI.
Kreuziger outsprinted his five breakaway companions in downtown Fort Collins after a disappointing week for his Tinkoff-Saxo squad.
"Before we came here we had a plan, but it can be difficult after doing the Ardennes Classics, the Giro and the Tour to still perform well," he said in the post-race press conference. "We set the GC after two stages, and during stage 2 Rohan [Dennis] set a really hard tempo and I understood it was not the time to do the GC, and so it was the moment to focus on the stages."
News of the Kreuziger anti-doping case first broke in June of last year when Tinkoff-Saxo withheld him from their Tour de France line-up after fluctuations were flagged in his biological passport between March 2011 and August 2011, and from April 2012 through the end of the 2012 Giro d'Italia, when he raced for Astana.
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Growing up in Missoula, Montana, Pat competed in his first bike race in 1985 at Flathead Lake. He studied English and journalism at the University of Oregon and has covered North American cycling extensively since 2009, as well as racing and teams in Europe and South America. Pat currently lives in the US outside of Portland, Oregon, with his imaginary dog Rusty.
