Thomas Lovkvist takes points and best youngest riders jersey in the Tour of Germany

September 01, 2008

POINTS AND BEST YOUNG RIDER’S JERSEY FOR LOVKVIST  IN GERMANY

Third place for Columbia’s Thomas Lovkvist on stage three of the Tour of Germany has earned the Swedish rider the provisional lead in two classifications - the Points and the Best Young Rider’s competitions. Following the 214.9 kilometre stage from Herrieden to Wiesloch, Lovkvist also remains in second place overall behind team-mate Linus Gerdemann, just 17 seconds behind.

This isn’t the easiest Tour of Germany route-wise, with  a lot of climbing early on, but Thomas is showing he’s got what it takes both for the mountain stages and even the small group sprints.” pointed out team manager Rolf Aldag. He did a brillaint ride on that first day on the summit finish at Hochfugen, Linus charged away [for the stage win and overall lead] and Thomas kept hanging on and hanging on behind.

For Linus having Thomas there riding such a steady tempo and covering the attacks as best he could was very important.  And  of course, having him second on gc and leading in these other classifications gives us all a lot of confidence for the rest of the Tour of Germany.

Aldag is cautious about Lovkvist’s chances of taking second overall, pointing out that the final 34 kilometre time trial in Bremen next Sunday “is not so good for him. It’s really flat, so it suits Linus better. Thomas would be better off if there were some climbs, but he’s really motivated, we know he’ll give it 100 percent. We’ll
have to see what happens.Given the scale of Team Columbia success in the last couple of weeks, Aldag has nothing but praise for the team in general.The last few days have been crazy, really extraordinary”, Aldag concluded “first we hit the jackpot
in Ireland with four stage wins and the overall, and at the same time we’re doing really well in the Tour of Germany. Things really couldn’t be going much better.