Michael Rasmussen aiming for dots

For the Rabobank team, the first week of the Tour de France has been about the mountains jersey, that Erik Dekker won after stage 3 and Karsten Kroon took over the next day. Now Michael Rasmussen wants to have a crack at it, as he has shown in Stage 8.

"I think that the mountains jersey could ride home in a break," Michael Rasmussen wrote in his diary at www.feltet.dk/michaelrasmussen. Although he was referring to Erik Dekker at the time, the same theory applies to today.

Rasmussen has been staying near the back of the peloton to try to lose time before the mountains. "I'm sitting in a position where I can hit the brakes if necessary. At some time a gap in the peloton is hopefully going to come about. But it's going to happen naturally. It isn't fun to be the only one to be left behind."