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In spite of slipping out of the back of the yellow jersey group on the final push to the line 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:at Plateau de Beille, 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:Damiano Cunego (168澳洲5最新开奖结果:Lampre-ISD) was in upbeat mood after stage 14 of the 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:Tour de France.

Cunego slipped to eighth overall after losing 39 seconds to the other overall contenders,⭕ but the Italian was pleased with the way in which he limited his losses after be💫ing dropped 5 kilometres from the summit.

As he recovered from the tumult of the fearsome final climb, a relaxed Cunego told Cyclingnews that the finale 🐼at Plateau de Beille had been far tou🍃gher than Thursday's tense Pyrenean opener.

"It was harder than 168澳洲5最新开奖结果:Luz-Ardiden, especially because all of the accumulated fatigue I have at this point," Cunego explained.🌳 "But I didn't ever lose concentration and I didn't lose so much in the end."

With Fränk and Andy Schleck accelerating and then desisting on a number of occasions on the upper section of the climb, Cunego a🅺dmitted that he struggled to cope with the stop-start nature of the race. Rather than cover the moves and risk cracking, he opted to follow his own tempo once he had been dropped.

"The changes in rhythm were really very violent, and I preferred to follow my own pace♒ because if I'd responded to all of those accelerations, it would have been worse," Cunego said. "I would have risked coming in five minutes down if I'd tried to follow those attacks, so it was better to continue regular🎐ly."

Marco Pantani was the Tour's first winner𝄹 at Plateau de Beille in 1998, and while Cunego is not going to follow in his late compatr🅘iot's wheel tracks, he remains confident that he can finish inside the top 10 overall.

"We'll keep seein🌃g as we go along, but let's hope that the others have some bad moments too, eh?" Cuneg🐬o joked.

Winner of the , Cunego has never scaled such heights in the Grand Tours since. In recent years, the Italian has prioritised the Classics, but he is keen to test himself over the three weeks of thi🍒s Tour de France.

"I'm just carrying on consistently, and if I keep that consistency, then I th💎ink things will improve," Cunego said. "We'll see what I can pick up as the race goes on. Today went a little bit better for the♍ others, but we'll see in the Alps if it stays like that."

The form of Alberto Contador (Saxo Bank-SunGa♚rd) remains a conundrum as the race exits the Pyrenees, and Cunego said that from his perspective, there were three riders stronger than the Spaniard on the Plateau de Beille.

💝"He [Contador] was good too, but the Schlecks and Basso impressed me more."