{"id":161408,"date":"2025-06-05T22:58:10","date_gmt":"2025-06-05T22:58:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/161408\/"},"modified":"2025-06-05T22:58:10","modified_gmt":"2025-06-05T22:58:10","slug":"oliveira-touched-me-and-that-stopped-me-from-sprinting-to-the-line-christen-explains-oliveiras-tour-of-slovenia-penalty","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/161408\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cOliveira touched me and that stopped me from sprinting to the line\u201d \u2013 Christen explains Oliveira\u2019s Tour of Slovenia penalty"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\u201cI went in the break for the KoM points and I wasn\u2019t even<br \/>\nplanning on going for the race lead in the Tour of Slovenia at all,\u201d Christen<br \/>\nrevealed in a <a href=\"https:\/\/www.q36-5procycling.com\/christen-wins-stage-in-slovenia-and-takes-race-lead\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">team press release.<\/a> \u201cThe goal here was to go for a stage win, and<br \/>\nthen prepare for my main goal at the Tour de Suisse. The stage win worked and<br \/>\nnow I will try to see what\u2019s possible\u2014but stage 4 is really hard and I<br \/>\nshouldn\u2019t kill myself either.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Q36.5 had numbers in the decisive move, with Christen<br \/>\ncrediting the collective effort: \u201cWe were with five riders and there weren\u2019t a<br \/>\nlot of teams with numbers up there so that\u2019s really good. The plan was to go<br \/>\nfor the sprint with Nicol\u00f3, but then Sjoerd attacked just before the climb and<br \/>\nI jumped across. I started my sprint early because I was in the wind. In the<br \/>\nfinal, Oliveira touched me and that stopped me from sprinting to the line.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Despite the tension around the result, Christen remained<br \/>\nfocused on the road ahead, \u201cTomorrow\u2019s final also suits me well. But we must<br \/>\nsee how the race plays out. Every day has been surprising so far, so let\u2019s see<br \/>\nhow tomorrow goes.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>Team sports director Alex Sans Vega praised the squad\u2019s<br \/>\nadaptability during a chaotic day of racing. \u201cWe knew today\u2019s stage well<br \/>\nbecause it was very similar to previous years. There were two options: a sprint<br \/>\nstage like yesterday or it goes bananas. It went bananas,\u201d he said with a<br \/>\nsmile.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cWhen the race leader Dylan Groenewegen got dropped on the<br \/>\nclimb, the scenario changed and we decided to race for it. Fabio was there for<br \/>\nus, securing bonus seconds and King of the Mountains points. It was impressive<br \/>\nteamwork with Calzoni, Bax, Parisini and Camprub\u00ed all with Fabio in the final<br \/>\n30 kilometres. Bax and Fabio then decided the race for it.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"\u201cI went in the break for the KoM points and I wasn\u2019t even planning on going for the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":161409,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4104],"tags":[4230,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-161408","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-cycling","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114633238479526901","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161408","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=161408"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/161408\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/161409"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=161408"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=161408"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=161408"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}