Alexander Kristoff has won stage seven of the Tour of California. Again, the riders had to overcome more than 2.700 altitude meters. “Phew. That was again a hard day here”, Styby said afterwards. “Fortunately Julian Alaphilippe still is in the lead.”
“The stage was hard again with small roads and steep climbs. And the pace was very high. We knew it would be difficult to defend the leader’s jersey from Julian. We all did our very best.”
In the final the climbers start to attack. “Only Petr Vakoc and Arlien Maximiliano Richeze of our team could follow. The rest of the team dropped. We did our best to come back and we were chasing for a long time but it didn’t work out.”
“Our team was only with three in the front to counter the attacks, but they did an excellent job. Julian still is in the lead. Tomorrow we must make sure to bring the jersey home.”