Loved his aggressiveness on the weekend. He gave all he had and proved that he was not merely content to follow Lance and wait for an opportunity. He pushed the pace to the best of his abilities and pushed Lance as much as anyone I've seen. Lance was certainly up to the task and matched any acceleration Basso made, but props to Basso for trying all he could to be the aggressor.
Also, props for doing all this after riding the Giro. I think we've seen the next Giro/Tour double winner. It'd be great to see him do it in the future. I think Pantani was the last in '97.
Props also to Lance for proving (not that he had any proving to do
) that he is more than just a follower of the Blue Train until the last climb of a mountain stage. He was truly pushed and tired, but he would not give an inch. I think he had a bit left if he really needed it, but he was thankful he didn't.
f
Originally Posted by Basso from Cyclingnews.com
Two days in a row I have attacked, everywhere it was possible. Lance was suffering, at least I like to think so, but even so he doesn't give in. On the highest cols I can't ride away from him and Lance is a better time-trial, so how can I win the Tour?" Ivan Basso told the press after a weekend of hard labour.
I gave everything today; I want to leave my mark on this Tour de France. I attacked as hard as I could, but Armstrong was able to follow. I didn't have another attack in me, so we rode together to try to put time on (Jan) Ullrich and the others. The past few years some critics were saying that I'm merely able to follow on the high cols. But that's not right.
...
I want to thank my teammates. They really rode as one block and executed our strategy to the letter. I'm also very happy that I've been able to prove that it is not impossible to ride well in both Giro and Tour. Only on the first day in the Alps, on Courchevel, I missed a bit of climbing rhythm because of the break I had after the Giro d'Italia. The only disappointment of this Tour is that we didn't get to win the team time trial because of the unfortunate crash of Zabriskie