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Two good days in a row for Vaitkus

published 28 June 2008

After winning silver in his national time trial on Friday, Tomas Vaitkus made it two good days in a...

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Tomas Vaitkus (Astana) gave up his number (Image credit: Bjorn Haake)

After winning silver in his national time trial on Friday, Tomas Vaitkus made it two good days in a row by winning the Lithuanian National Road Race title on Saturday. Both races were held in Ignalina.

"The road race was a big goal of mine, which all my competitors knew coming into the race and made me an easy target," said Vaitkus. "I was lucky there was a crosswind, making the race harder and allowing me and to get in a breakaway of six riders. Though I did not have any Team Astana riders here, I am very grateful for the support I received from the Kazakh Ulan Team riders.

Vaitkus defeated Andrius Buividas (CC Etupes) and Marius Kukta (Maporo Named Team Aurora) for the road championship win. He became Team Astana's fifth rider to win a 2008 national championship after Sérgio Paulinho (Portugal Time Trial), Assan Bazayev (Kazakhstan Road Race), Vladimir Gusev (Russian Time Trial) and Andrey Mizurov (Kazakhstan Time Trial).

For the Lithuanian champion, it is his second title in the event (2004, 2008). Vaitkus' career highlights further include a gold medal on the U23 world championships time trial in 2002, a stage victory in the Giro d'Italia (2006) and two national time trial titles (2003, 2004).