June 20, 2006

Koldo Gil is second in GC

The 70th edition of the Tour de Suisse has come to a close with a nice but bitter stage that left SAUNIER DUVAL-PRODIR´s Koldo Gil second in the overall standings. In spite of Gil's tremendous effort to defend the yellow jersey till the very last metre of the stage´s final time-trial, Jan Ullrich (T-Mobile) outsped him and took the second Tour de Suisse of his career. As a team, SAUNIER DUVAL-PRODIR did a great job this week to secure a place among the best teams, always on the attack and with young guns Gil, Gómez Marchante, Cañada, Zaugg and the others enlivening each and every stage of the race. Koldo took stage 6, from Fiesch to La Punt, wore the yellow jersey for three days, and was disappointed when he had to transfer it to Ullrich at the very end of the tour. However, the SAUNIER DUVAL-PRODIR rider did very well in the time-trial today, along the 30 kilometres from Kerzers to Bern, doing his best in spite of the rain, the wind, a turn that made him lose balance and succomb to his German rival´s overwhelming strength. Thus, young Gil (age 28) finished second in the GC, 24 seconds after Ullrich, showing once again that he is an astonishing, charismatic rider. The team results were good as well: SAUNIER DUVAL-PRODIR finished 3rd in the team classification.