"...that it is I who should ride the TT in the
Olympics, not YMD."
From erikdekker.nlcolumn index.phpOpen ↗ , my
translation:
Interesting week
Last week in the Dauphiné I rode between a few candidate
Tour winners and that was interesting. Especially the
uphill TT on the Ventoux was a serious test for anyone
going for a good classification in the Tour. The winner
was Mayo in a new record time. Tyler Hamilton also proved
to be on schedule and was trailing by 35 seconds. Lance
Armstrong lost 2 minutes and he was not happy with that.
Our GC riders were in the top 10 but were 3.5 minutes
behind. Quite tolerable, but Michael Rasmussen had hoped
for more, but he had stomach troubles. Immediately after
the TT he said he wanted to lose 10 minutes in the next
stage and to win the stage after that. He was still 9th on
the GC! But he did it exactly as planned and won by 8
minutes like it was nothing! That also brought him back to
7th. Even better. Just shoot me, but it was a really
excellent effort. I can say Rasmussen and also Leipheimer
are ready for the big show. Freire and Kroon not yet. That
is to say, both were not within the time limit on the
Ventoux and had to head home prematurely. Both with
different causes, but still. It's not ideal. Because I was
at the Dauphiné I could not participate in the Dutch TT
championships. It was won by my namesake and the biggest
talent of Holland, Thomas Dekker. After that the
discussion was fired up if it should now be Thomas that
goes to the Olympics in that event. I too would like to go
there as a time trialist and that leaves the national
coach, Knetemann, with a decision to make in the next few
weeks. Comparing is not possible, because we are not
competing in the same races. The Tour prologue is an
indication, but that's all. Suppose I end up 21st. What do
you do with such a result? And in the long TTs in the Tour
I will definitely not prove myself worthy. Those days are
very important foremost to conserve as much energy as
possible for other, more interesting days. Moreover, a "bike-
off" [analogy with new Dutch word 'skate-off' used to
indicate ultimate selection event in speedskating between
2 or 3 contenders, introduced 2 years ago] does not sound
like a very good idea to me. An interesting week
therefore, and I didn't even talk one word about the
European football championships. Cheers, Erik Dekker.