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| |  Thursday, 11 July, 2002, 16:31 GMT 17:31 UK McEwen blasts sprint rivals McEwen (right) was angry at the lack of teamwork Robbie McEwen has blamed his rival teams for failing to work together to close down the breakaway on stage five of the Tour de France. McEwen's Lotto-Adecco team were among the front-runners in battling to close down the gap on the quintet along with Credit Agricole and Francaise des Jeux. But the Australian sprinter, who led home the peloton in sixth place behind eventual winner Jaan Kirsipuu, insisted it was an opportunity lost by the big sprinters. He said: "We got together our team, Credit Agricole and Francais Des Jeux. The three Aussie teams did all the work.
"Mapei had one guy there and Telekom started a little bit late. If everyone had got together we could have done it (closed the break down). "I heard Erik Zabel (Telekom's leading sprinter) wasn't feeling so good today which is why they didn't ride." Kirsipuu, meanwhile, was delighted to have succeeded in the five-man break and caught out his leading sprint rivals. And the Estonian rider revealed he had been preparing for a breakaway all day. He added: "Originally I didn't have the confidence in the sprints. The last sprint I'd done well in was the Paris-Nice in March.
"Since then I had an injury and I was just coming back from it at the beginning of the Tour but my knee was hurting a little bit. "The stage when I finished seventh two days ago I was feeling really good so I just decided to make a break of my own." At one point the quintet pulled out a lead of almost five minutes but that was rapidly broken down as the leading sprinters' teams allied to cut the deficit. The Estonian national champion and his fellow breakaway riders, though, failed to reel them in and finished a total of 33 seconds behind. Kirsipuu added: "A stage win is always special in the Tour de France - it was a real relief." | |
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