Iban content with ITT

After finishing 46th yesterday, just over six minutes back on Vinokourov, he spoke to Saunier Duval`s homepage. Iban seemed quite pleased by his performance; and rightly so: "I had said this was a long and tough time-trial, where time differences were expected to be big, along the lines of previous Tour editions. I´m not surprised that Vino built such a time gap. We all knew that he couldn´t be ruled out yet. And when we had the chance to leave him out of the race, we spared his life. Now, he´s in again. What came as a surprise was Rasmussen´s performance. Now he has three mountain stages ahead. He and Evans are the big favourites, but with what we saw today, Vinokourov could also be there. He´s bound to become more of an attacker for the rest of the race.”“In my case, I was not so bad today. I had my pace, but it was a stage for real time-trialists. I knew I would lose time, so I´m not feeling bad. I a mountain goat, so now it´s my time. If I can do what I expect, what happened today won´t affect me. Two or three minutes in Albi can easily be gained in the Pyrenees. My only concern is regaining strength in time to fight for victory as from tomorrow. With regard to the GC, if I´m not going to be on the final podium, I really prefer one stage win. My fans and followers are coming tomorrow to Plateau de Beille, and this means extra incentives to put up a good show."