Squeezing all of the television crews into the cramped back room of the Hotel Migliorati in Castione della Presolana for Nairo Quintana's press conference on the final rest day of the Giro d'Italia was a conundrum rather like trying to put a ship in a bottle.
For the bones of an hour, cameramen from Colombia, Italy and the Netherlands staked out their patches of real estate, eventually happening upon a feng shui arrangement that allowed everybody a clear shot of the man himself. The downtrodden written press, meanwhile, tiptoed carefully past their furrowed brows and slotted in where they could.
Quintana arrived punctually at 1.30, squeezed his way politely between the tripods and equipment, and took a seat at the top table, flanked by Movistar manager Eusebio Unzue, who has returned to the Giro d'Italia for its denouement in the high mountains.
ADVERTISEMENT
Speaking in tones that scarcely reached the front row – far less the back of the small room – Quintana calmly held court on how he might go about solving a rather more pressing conundrum, namely how to divest Tom Dumoulin (Sunweb) of the maglia rosa.
Although Quintana dropped Dumoulin on the Blockhaus on stage 9, he was soundly beaten by the Dutchman in the Montefalco time trial. That, at least, was only to be expected. More surprising was Dumoulin's defeat of Quintana on the mountaintop finish at Oropa on Saturday. Six days from the finish in Milan, Quintana's deficit stands at 2:41.
"It's quite complicated," Quintana conceded on Monday. "On one climb it went like we hoped, and on another it didn't, but we're still here fighting. We'll do our best to try to win. Now we have five days that are in theory favourable for us. Dumoulin has been good so far, but we'll see how he is in the rest of the race."
Allies and descents
Unzue compares Dumoulin to Indurain
You can read more at Cyclingnews.com
via Cyclingnews Latest News http://ift.tt/2rcANZc
No comments:
Post a Comment