Tour Team News: Fredrik Kessiakoff Spot on for stage 11

Swedish rider attacks on the Madeleine and the Croix de Fer to regain spotted King of the Mountains jersey

When the road goes up, Team Astana start to shine! Following on from his magnificent attack in Sunday’s stage, today Fredrik Kessiakoff was once again in the limelight on two historic climbs of the Tour de France: the Col de la Madeleine and the Col de la Croix de Fer.

Kessiakoff took 45 points in the climber’s classification over the course of the stage and as a result will be back in the polka dot jersey tomorrow. The Swede was assisted in his campaign by Alexandr Vinokurov and Robert Kiserlovski, with the latter also launching an attack in final part of the stage. Meanwhile Jani Brajkovic was the first to attack race-leader Bradley Wiggins and finished the stage in eighth place.

“The only goal we didn’t manage to achieve today was the stage victory,” said Team Manager Giuseppe Martinelli. “Otherwise we did really well right from the first escape, where we had four riders: Iglinskiy, Vinokurov, Grivko and Kiserlovski. They were then joined by Kessiakoff, which made us the best represented team in terms of numbers of good riders. We wanted to guide Kessiakoff to the polka dot jersey and we succeeded.”

“Brajkovič did brilliantly; after starting off with all the leaders, he was the one who set everyone going. After him, Van den Broeck and Nibali made their move and battle broke out. The team is in good health; we have still got eight days ahead of us and we can do well. We absolutely must win at least one stage,” said Martinelli.

Summing up, directeur sportif Guido Bontempi added: “We worked hard but didn’t manage to bring it to bring it all together at the end.”