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13th Gala Tour de France - 30.07.2009 - Luxembourg-ville
Riders:
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Andy Schleck
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Andy Schleck is one of the most talented riders of his generation and he could well be one of the biggest stars in cycling in the next years. The 2009 season brought confirmation of this on the highest level with a huge success at Liège-Bastogne-Liège and a second place overall in the Tour de France.
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Frank Schleck
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Frank Schleck has had his international breakthrough in 2006 when he won the Amstel Gold Race and the Alpe d'Huez stage in the Tour de France. Since then, he is establisched among the best of the world in both the one-day classics and the Tour de France, and he is still improving as the stage win and the 5th place overall in this year's Tour show.
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Kim Kirchen
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Kim Kirchen hasn't had a good season until now, after he broke his shoulder and his collarbone in the Tour of California. He focused totally on the Tour de France, but the different preparation compared to other years didn't work out as it should have. Of course, Kim hopes on the rest of the season to take a big win, like in the Flèche Wallonne 2008.
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Benoît Joachim
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Benoît Joachim was the first rider in recent Luxemburg cycling history to become professional, the first to show the now famous red-white-blue National jersey in stages of the Tour de France. In his long carreer as domestique, he also had some moments of glory, like on the day when he took over the amarillo jersey of leader in the Vuelta Espana. His 2009 season was stopped by a broken hand, but now he is back on the bike again and hoping to regain a decent level.
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Alessandro Ballan
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The rainbow jersey will be present at the Gala Tour de France. In September 2008, Alessandro Ballan took the world champion title at home, in front of ecstastic crowds and after a perfect race of the Squadra Azzurra. This should be the greatest moment in his cycling career, although there are others like his victory in the 2007 Tour of Flanders.
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Gilberto Simoni
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A few years ago, Gibo was the master at the Giro d'Italia, finishing the Corsa Rosa two times as overall winner and a total of 7 times on the podium. Today, he is still hoping for a third victory, but he also has another, new dream: being Moutain-Bike world champion. Since his first participation at the Gala Tour de France, Simoni has become a friend of the ACC Contern and shows up in Luxemburg on a regular basis.
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Denis Bertolini
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Denis Bertolini comes out of a cycling family and his brother Bruno also was professionnal riders. There are three Bertolinis at the Team Diquigiovanni with Denis and his two cousins Thomas and Alessandro. Denis is a fast sprinter and he won against Alejandro Valverde on the 2001 Mediteraneen games and against Erik Zabel in the 2004 peace race.
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Stuart O'Grady
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Stuart O'Grady has had lots of bad luck in recent seasons with crashes and injuries and he has been a worthy helper for the Schleck brothers in this year's Tour de France. Several years ago, O'Grady was in contention for the green jersey at the Tour, a dream that never came true despite being very close a few times. A dream that came true, however, was that fantastic victory in Paris-Roubaix, when he was rewarded for his offensive racing with the biggest win in his life.
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Marcus Burghardt
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Another rider who has had his share of inuries is Marcus Burghardt, but his career shows also two absolute highlights: A victory in the 2007 Gent-Wevelgem, when he tricked out the sprinters with a late attack, and a stage win in the 2008 Tour de France after a long, long break with Carlos Barredo. Some good placings in the Flemish classics and recently in the Tour of Austria and the Tour de Suisse show that another big success could follow in 2009.
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Maxime Monfort
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Maxime Monfort has all it takes to be a big contender in stage races. Excellent in time-trial, good in the mountains, the rider from Wallonia has a carreer with ups and downs. He was very young when he won the Tour of Luxemburg and this year, as team-mate of Kim Kirchen, he shows also good form with top placings in Bayern-rundfahrt, Criterium International, Tour de Suisse and Tour de France.
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Philippe Gilbert
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Philippe Gilbert is used to top placings in the one-day classics and last year, he was also able to score a big success, when he won Paris-Tours in a thrilling final. This season, he missed that little part of luck to take the win in the classics, when he took Top 5 placings in Tour of Flanders, Amstel Gold Race and Liège-Bastogne-Liège. Instead, he won a stage of the Giro d'Italia and the overall classification of the Ster Elektro Tour.
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Jurgen Roelandts
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In 2008, Jürgen Roelandts surprised a lot of people when he took the Belgian National title ahead of the big sprinters. Since then, the young man has confirmed his talent and his fast legs with top placings at the Tour de Suisse and Paris-Nice among others.
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Christophe Brandt
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Chrstophe Brandt developed very early as a good climber for long stage races. But in 2006, a nasty crash stopped his career and it took him some time, to come back to his old form again.
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Staf Scheirlinckx
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Staf Scheirlinckx is a rider with lots of abilities who can do well in cyclo-cross events or in such different races as Giro di Lombardia and Paris-Roubaix, which he has finished inside the Top 20 three times in a row.
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Bert Scheirlinckx
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Bert Scherilinckx works for another team than his brother Staf and can look back at a good spring 2009 with Top 20 placings at the Tour of Flanders and at Paris-Roubaix.
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Sebastien Rosseler
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Sebastien Rosseler didn't have his best Tour de France. He was supposed to drive the sprints for Tom Boonen, but after the out of the Belgian champion, he had to do on his own and took 15th in Barcelona and 22nd on the Champs Elysees.
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Laurent Lefèvre
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Laurent Lefèvre is one of those riders that animate races like the Tour de France with their offensive riding style. They don't succeed very often, but sometimes it works like in the stage to Vittel, where only Nikki Sörensen was better than Lefèvre.
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Olivier Bonnaire
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Just like his cousin Laurent Lefèvre, Olivier Bonnaire riders for the BBox Bougues team, where he was part of the young team, before joining the professionnals after some good results in the U23 categories.
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Stéphane Augé
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Another offensive style riders who is used to be in long breaks. During stage 6 of the Tour 2009, Augé took over the polka-dot jersey of best climber, after having been at the front of the race the way into Barcelona with Millar and Chavanel.
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Christophe Kern
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On July 10th, Christophe Kern failed to score the biggest win of his career yet. On the last kilometres of the first mountain top finish in the Tour, he was lying in second place and came closer and closer to the leader. He finally finished second in Andorra, just a few meters back on the winner Brice Feillu. As consolation prize, Kern took the polka-dot best climber jersey on that day.
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Sebastien Minard
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Sebastien Minard has a good season so far. Three times, he took a top place in a Tour de France stage. In Besancon, Minard was part of the good break and in Tarbes and Saint Girons, he sprinted into the Top 15, inside the first big group at the end of the two mountain stages.
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Arnaud Coyot
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Arnaud Coyot likes the Flemish races, but since he is a member of the Caisse d'Epargne team, he has to concentrate more on the stage races with his leaders Valverder and Sanchez.
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Remi Di Gregorio
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Remi Di Gregorio wasn't at the Tour de France this year, even though he was one of the major French revelations on that race last year, showing himself among others on the Tourmalet. He has had some good results this year, among them a 5th place at the Route du Sud, a French preparation race for La Grande Boucle.
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Brian Vandborg
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Brian Vandborg is a worthy helper for Pellizotti, Kreuziger or Nibali in the Liquigas team. But his real abilities are situated in time-trials, where he was for example 2006 in Salzburg 4th at the world championships.
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Frederik Willems
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Even though he rides for an Italian team, Frederik Willems has had his best results on home soil, in the Flemish races, where he was able to take this year the overall win at the 3 days of De Panne. At the Tour de France 2009, he was mostly noted in the stage to Besancon, where he was in the good break with Ivanov and Hincapie and fought for the stage win.
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Johannes Fröhlinger
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Johannes Fröhlinger is a young rider, who is showing good climbing skills. He is mostly known for having finished in third place behind Feillu and Kern at the first tough moutain stag of this year's Tour de France.
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Fumiyuku Beppu
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Fumiyuku Beppu is a star in his home country since he is the first Japanese rider since Masatoshi Ichikawa to establish himself in European cycling and, together with Arashiro, the first one to finish the Tour de France. He will be a big attraction at the Gala Tour de France since he is known for being an offensive rider, as he has shown it during the last stage on the Champs Elysées among others.
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