Wipperman Chain Powers Cardoso To TDU Victory

A great victory for the Footon-Servetto-Fuji team came on the hottest—and hardest—stage in the 12th annual Santos Tour Down Under, first stop on this years’ 2010 UCI ProTour. Portuguese road elite champ Manuel Cardoso powered to an amazing, Wipperman-assisted win in the uphill sprint in the town of Stirling, arrivé for the grueling, 104°F, 132.5-km stage 3, featuring final circuit whose main ascent was climbed three times by the peloton.

(We’re not going to claim here that the superior power transmission from Cardoso’s stronger, stiffer Wipperman chain propelled him to victory in anything but a purely technical sense…but it certainly didn’t hurt him, either.)

The squad, managed by Mario Cipollini’s own sprint train conductor Stefano Zanini, was well- placed throughout the stage and—captained by final lead-out man David Vitoria—able to contain team Caisse d’Epargne featuring Vuelta a España winner Alejandro Valverde. Outstanding leadership and team tactics positioned Cardoso perfectly to win with a comfortable 1-second gap (even with his eyes closed) over Valverde and world road champion Cadel Evans (BMC).

This victory marks the second stage triumph of the season for the youthful Footon-Servetto-Fuji ProTour squad, on the heels of Rafa Valls’ victory in the Queen stage of the Tour de San Luis Tuesday.


COMMENT
Manuel Cardoso: “I’m tremendously happy, this is the biggest win in my career. The team worked a lot to take me into the final sprint, and even though Caisse d’Epargne tried and made things harder to win with Valverde, I was able to outsprint him and notch up this great victory. The uphill finishes suit me very well and I always managed to be at my top level on them; after some low days with not enough energy, I was able to get over this and perform at my best. The rivals will look at us with other eyes from now on, but we’ll go on working so as to bring out results like this one. The most important thing for a sprinter is snatching victories: the confidence this win gives me must help me work better and think of bigger moments of success during the season. This returns the team the confidence they gave me, shows them their bet for a young squad was the adequate choice, as shown yesterday in Argentina, and allows me to take any doubts off and show I’m able to adapt into a foreign squad and the pace of the ProTour peloton.”

Note: See complete stage coverage, more pics from our friends at velonews.com

All photos courtesy Footon-Servetto-Fuji.