Styby wanted to make a good race, when he dressed for the first time rainbow jersey of world champion. But he was seventh in Maldegem today.
„I had hard last days. There was a lot of activities and I did not have almost any time from Tabor. I was happy to went to the finnish today,“ smiles Styby. „My legs were tired, I was in the back of the first group. I wanted to enjoy the race, but it was almost impossible. But I expected something like that.“
But Styby enjoyed great atmosphere. „It was really crazy, I got to the fans at least 400 of my team cards, I also got some bottles of wine like a present from organisers before the race. I did not expect, that rainbow jersey can up my popularity too much. It was really nice.“
His success in Tabor broke a lot of records: in Czech TV was WCH in Tabor most watched sport’s venue on the sport’s channel CT4, which started broadcast in 2006. Almost one million of people watched all the races. In Belgium only elite race watched 1 113 936 people...
And this website? Records too. on Sunday 4500 pople was here and on Monday 3400. „I am very happy about it. There were also some records on my mobile:)- I had a message there on Sunday night, that I have 205 new emails. On Belgian number I had 98 SMS, on Czech number the same count. I was not able to answer for all of them till this time. But I would like to thanks all my fans for that,“ said Zdenek.
Results from Maldegem: 1. Niels Albert, 2. Kevin Pauwels, 3. Bart Wellens, 4. Sven Nys, 5. Klaas Vantornout, 6. Sven Vanthourenhout, 7. Zdenek Stybar.
New UCI rankings: 1. Zdenek Stybar 3320 points, 2. Nys 2800, 3. Albert 2740, 4. Vantornout 2286, 5. De Knegt 1725, 6. Pauwels 1596.
