Despite only three of the Giro d'Italia's 20 stages having been run, the Italian Milram team has already outlined its delight at its home-event performance. The statements come after the squad's star rider Alessandro Petacchi sprinted to victory on Monday's 181 kilometre Stage 3.
"It doesn't get any better than today. We won and we can be satisifed," said Milram's Christian Knees in his diary on rad-net.de.
An escape group of five riders had up to a six minute advantage during the stage, which is not unusual on a sprinter's stage like Monday's. But when they still had over five minutes lead with only 40 kilometres to go, Milram got ichy.
"We did everything we could to catch them," explained Knees. "That meant that we then couldn't give our all in the sprint, because it was pretty strenuous. But Alessandro accomplished it alone.
"After the race, we all had to get on the podium together, because we were being honoured as the 'super team'," he added. "I don't really know what that means, but it is some kind of team ranking that rewards us for our work yesterday and today."
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