High Road's Arndt moves into World Cup lead

May 04, 2008

Judith Arndt soared into the World Cup lead on Sunday after clinching second place in the Tour de Berne round of the series.

“It’s a surprise, but a nice surprise.” Arndt said afterwards.  “To be honest, I didn’t even know that I could get the leader’s jersey today.”

“My goal is more to win individual races this season than the series overall, but now I’ve got it, though, I will work hard to try to keep it.”

Berne was won by Sweden’s Susanne Ljungskog after attacking from a group of 18 riders in the finale. Arndt led in the remainder of the leading  break for second.

“I was expecting Susanne to make a move, but it wasn’t possible to get in every break, and she made the right one.”

Arndt had nothing but praise for her High Road team-mates, who sacrificed themselves early on to keep her in the frame.

“Our team did a lot of work today because I wasn’t well placed early on. I missed the first break and that meant they had to get on the front of the bunch to bring it back and put me back in contention.”

“They  were tired in the finale and I was the only High Road rider in the winning move. But that was my fault because they had to do so much earlier in the race.”

“I’m happy though, to have the jersey. Second is a good result.”

Victorious in the Tour of Flanders round of the World Cup and third in the Fleche Wallonne, Arndt says  the revamped and much hillier Berne course “suited me well.Even with the new climbs, the roads were wide and on top of that the weather was good today. That made for a fast, exciting course with lots of attacks.”

“Now we’ve got the leader’s jersey, we’ll work to keep it.” added team sports director, Ronny Lauke. “Montreal, the next round of the World Cup, is a race that suits Judith very well indeed - don’t forget she won it back in 2006!”