12-Mar-2009 - Jérémy Roy (Française des Jeux) took today's 204 km stage over Thomas Voeckler (Bbox Bouygues Telecom) and Tony Martin (Columbia-Highroad) while Heinrich Haussler (Cervélo TestTeam) outsprinted the peloton to finish 4th finishing 2'32" back of the winner. Sylvain Chavanel (Quick Step) retains the yellow jersey.

Sports Director JP van Poppel commented, "Today was the first really heavy day with three climbs of the 3rd and 2nd category and one of the first category but we survived.

"Jeremy Roy, Tony Martin and Thomas Voeckler broke away at kilometer 13 and they had a maximum gap of 3 minutes. After a while, we started chasing with Quick Step for our sprinter Heinrich Haussler.

"With 20 km to go, we saw that we weren't going make it and put our lead out rider Hayden Roulston into the chase. But then Heinrich had a puncture and we had to stop to chase. When our riders were back in the peloton there was a crash and Heinrich lost his chain. So we realiseed that we would have to sprint for the fourth place.

"Heinrich did it easy, and is within one point of the green jersey leader. Tomorrow is another hard day, so we do it easy. On the weekend we want to test the riders for Milan San Remo to see how the legs are going."

Tirreno-Adriatico Round-up:
Alessandro Petacchi (LPR Brakes-Farnese Vini) took today's 177 km second stage from Volterra - Marina di Carrara over Daniele Bennati (Liquigas) and Koldo Fernández (Euskaltel-Euskadi). Dominique Rollin (Cervélo TestTeam) finished 4th.

Julien El Farès (Cofidis) holds onto the leaders jersey.

Sports Director Jens Zemke commented, "First place today for Alessandro Petacchi, the big favourite before the stage, second Daniele Bennati and third was Koldo Fernández. We were fourth with Dominique Rollin.

"Bad luck today with five bad crashes. The hardest one with Thor, he crashed on the last climb with maybe 15 km to go. He fell on his head and was bleeding. I'm not sure, I haven't seen him until now. After the stage we will see together with the doctor how he is doing.

"The other crashes where with Gabriel Rash, Andreas Klier, Simon Gerrans and Rodger Hammond, we had to change the bikes. So a lot of stress today. Overall a lot of crashes as I think there are too many riders for the small roads in Italy.

"In the final group we switched to prepare the sprint for Rollin and he did an excellent job to sprint to fourth place."