16-09-2008 20:05:22

A strong collective effort by Columbia’s women’s squad saw them roar to victory in the opening team time trial of the Giro della Toscana - Memorial Michela Fanini in Italy - and pick up four different leaders’ jerseys as a result.

“Linda [Villumsen] was the first rider across the line and so will start Wednesday’s stage with the leader’s jersey, Ina [Teutenberg] will start with the sprints jersey, Emilia [Fahlin] has the U-23 leader’s jersey and Chantal [Beltman] has the jersey for the Best Foreign Rider.” commented team sports manager Petra Rossner.

“We’re going to try and get in as many breaks as possible on Wednesday stage because with so many different jerseys I don’t think the peloton are going to recognise half the team and they could get away!” she joked.

On a very short TTT circuit of just 5.4 kilometres and with a squad of eight riders, Rossner recognised it had required top-level organisation to ensure Columbia used all their strength.

“We had five riders that are the best at this kind of effort do most of the work, and three riders were sitting on.”

“We only lost one rider on the circuit, Mara Abbott - time trialling like this is just not her kind of  thing. But to be able to finish with so many riders, seven of the eight, and to win on top of that is a sign we worked it all out well.”

“Other than that, there was no real strategy possible on such a short course, it was just a question of going all out from the gun.”

Vilumsen was the first rider across the line and so wears the leader’s jersey, but Rossner said it was not pre-planned at all.

“We didn’t work out beforehand that she should be first, instead we wanted everybody to have their chance. Everybody put in a 100 percent effort and nobody is above the rest in this team.”

Explaining the team’s exceptional success rate throughout the year, Rossner argued “It’s a real philosophy in this team not to focus on the result, but to keep exploiting our potential to the full. That’s why we’ve had such a great season this year.”

“We work well as a unit and even if this is the last stage race of the season for Team Columbia, we’re as motivated now as we were in the first event of 2008.”