the nortas tour of tasmania interview

Tour of Tasmania Aug 30th - Sept 3rd
Robert Tighello

impact:well congratulations robert, your leading the tour and you must be very pleased with your performance
robert:yeh I'm happy with it the only other thing that could have worked out better was to have got the stage win as well, but to be winning the tour at this stage, I don't know if its really good or bad. It's early and there's still a really long way to go in the bike race
impact:with just 28 seconds between the top ten riders I guess we'll have to wait and see what happens during the week. obviously you'll want to defend the jersey. now glenn chadwick went on the attack early and that made areal race of it today
robert:well he's my team mate and I was going to try to get accross, but basically the russians just jammed up the KOM and forced a split in the group and I was able to go with it. we then all worked together and we were able to establish a good lead
impact:and karl menzies was leading after the first couple of sprints and you stuck together though, at one stage you were averaging 42kph so you obviously wanted to keep the pace fairly quick
robert:yeh the roads were up and down but the winds were favourable with the tailwind so that kept the speed up. Karl won the two sprints and being a local guy he knew where they were which made it easy on his behalf. he was going ok and I knew there were a few time bonus's in there so I just concentrated on getting a place here and there to sneak a bit of time
impact: and for nearly all of the race there were no major attacks from the german or russian riders. did that surprise you
robert: I thought they'd have a go early, well before the finish, they usually initiate that sort of thing but they weren't. I mean every time they got away with an australian they wouldn't do too much work. it was just a numbers game and it ended up working out for them in the end. hopefully we can keep that from happening next time
impact:now it ended up with five of you in that last few kilometres after you managed to slip away
robert:they kept taking it in turns attacking us and I was just covering everything and going with it. eventually a small group slipped off the front containing two of the milo team and two from the russians. they just kept trying to chip away all the time, including into the finish just to get a guy away for the stage win. while they did that it worked out for me because running second and being pretty much the best of the rest of them I was happy to get that(second) result
impact:now you had a great success winning this years tattersall cup series and claiming the national road championships, now your leading the tour, so you must feel good about your form
robert:yes I've had good form and I geared my season around this tour now it's at this time of the year. I just hope to be able to keep it(my form) and be competitive. ever since I was a kid I wanted to be australian champion so I am estatic with that
impact:and do you think the team can hold up to the german and russian attacks after all its a long stage to St Helens tomorrow with plenty of tough climbs
robert:they'll look after me the best they can and I'll look after myself too, as best I can, then reassess things tomorrow night. hopefully things will work out the best they can. obviously I don't want the pressure of having to chase guys when I can sit in and look after myself, then I can be there at the finish
impact:I am sure everyone wishes you the best for tomorrow and the rest of the tour robert and well done so far
robert:thanks very much richard, ta

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