Gerolsteiner's Sebastian "Seppl" Lang certainly doesn't have the rainbow jersey, but the German can claim to have the colours. His lower left side "is resplendent with all the colours of a rainbow," he said on Thursday. "For a pro rider it's an annoying area, as we have to sit in the saddle all day..."
Lang took a spectacular fall in the last stage of the Tour of California, which his bike did not survive, but from which he fortunately emerged with only bruises. "I tried riding yesterday and it was still pretty painful, but today I'm on the rollers and it's going pretty well," continued Lang, who is hoping to start in Paris-Nice after losing out on just one day of training due to the long flight from California back to Europe.
"Paris-Nice starts on Sunday, and the riders from the other teams who were with us in California could have trained only one day more than myself - Wednesday. It's only a small comfort, but still good for morale," he said.
Looking back at the Tour of California, "Seppl" said, "With Levi's stage win and the leader's jersey, Gerolsteiner had to be very disciplined and work very hard. But after LL had to give away the leader's jersey, all of us in the team had the chance to really mess with the race. That's what we did, attacking over and over again, whenever we wanted. It was a lot of fun to keep the other teams busy like that. I'm very much looking forward to the next races."
The following Gerolsteiner boys will accompany Lang on the roads of Paris-Nice: Thorsten Hiekmann, Sven Montgomery, Volker Ordowski, Matthias Russ, Ronny Scholz, Stefan Schumacher and Markus Zberg.
Courtesy of Susan Westemeyer
