Quick interview: BMC’s John Lelangue.

Tour de France, Stage 19, quick interview with BMC director Sportif John Lelangue this morning before the monster named Alp d’Huez.

TS    Talk to me about the tactics yesterday. Did Cadel really think anyone was going to help him catch Andy Schleck?

JL    Yes, but they losing for themselves a good place on the podium — or even a white jersey, a top five, something like this. If they are playing the game of just hanging on wheels, perhaps they are going to regret that on Sunday.

TS    Did Cadel say anything to Basso or Voeckler in particular?

JL    Once we saw that after two attacks, there was no reaction behind, no counter and nobody to help, the only way was to keep the momentum up front.

TS    Laurent Jalabert said he was surprised Voeckler’s teammate Rolland didn’t ride to help close the gap?

JL    He had one teammate and further more, one teammate who could have been in the white jersey yesterday night. Because Uran crashed and was not on a good day, Taaramae was already dropped.

if you look at the classification I think he is behind Taaramae by 30 seconds. I think think that Rolland was a good guy to climb and take some time. You see also that Voeckler is still in the lead, he could still be maybe on the podium in Paris, maybe for for second place, third place.

If he is losing this for a few second, I think he will regret not putting Rolland  in the front. It was his decision. Once they say no, I’m not the guy who is going to the cars to ask for help. They say no, then we do our own race.

TS    How was Cadel’s mood last night or this morning after Schleck’s big triumph?

JL    He was a little disappointed to lose a place on GC but what we did was pretty great. Id Cadel was not riding, I think could could have said last night that Andy Schleck won the Tour de France. Because then the gap was four or five minutes. Now we’re still in a position to make the best tour we can. We don’t know if it will be yellow, second or third but whatever, we have no regrets. We did the race we wanted to do.