A visibly emotional Heinrich Haussler had the “perfect” day after a stunning Stage 13 ride saw him earn his first Tour de France victory. The Cervelo TestTeam rider’s daredevil descending on the 200 kilometre ride from Vittel to Colmar ensured he finished a comfortable four minutes 11 seconds ahead of Euskaltel-Euskadi’s Amets Txurrukax, with Brice Feillu (Agritubel) in third.
Many of the riders were affected by the dismal weather conditions on the tough stage and Haussler, who finished nearly seven minutes ahead of the bunch, revealed that was an advantage for him.
“Today was perfect. I only live about 30km from here so you could say it’s my training area and also this weather, I love the rain and the cold.
“At the beginning it was difficult because there are a lot of good riders in the group and the peloton behind were chasing the whole time.
“They didn’t let us go so I just tried to split it up a bit because there were too many good hill climbers there and I knew as the day would go on I would get stronger and the others would get weaker because I just love this type of weather and it’s really good for me.”
Haussler had led for the majority of the stage along with Ruben Perez Moreno (Euskaltel-Euskadi) and Quick Step captain Sylvain Chavanel, and at one point the trio were nearly 10 minutes ahead of the peloton.
However, their lead was slowly eaten up on the most difficult climb of the day, the category one Col du Platzerwasel, and Perez Moreno was caught on the descent.
Haussler started to pull away from Cheval with some audacious descending and extended his lead on the small Col du Bannstein before keeping up the pace on the second-category Col du Firstplan to storm to victory in his maiden Tour.
And the 25-year-old admitted the ease at which he attacked Cheval surprised even him.
Haussler added: “I thought he was just playing with me because either he didn’t come through on the turns or his turns were a bit weak.
“On the downhill because the peloton had closed it down to about three minutes I just had to go because if I had waited I don’t know what would have happened, so I just went.
“I just went like crazy and I didn’t even really realise it until the last kilometre because it felt like a dream. It was perfect.”
It has been a brilliant season for the Australian-German and this was his fifth victory of the year.
Rinaldo Nocentini (Ag2R) retained the race leader’s yellow jersey, with Astana pair Alberto Contador and Lance Armstrong six and eight seconds behind respectively.
Mark Cavendish (Team Columbia-HTC) appeared to suffer under the weather conditions today and conceded the green jersey back to Cervelo’s Thor Hushovd, who is now five points ahead of the Isle of Man cyclist.
Franco Pellizotti (Liquigas) took the polka dot jersey off Egoi Martinez (Euskaltel-Euskadi) who now has three points fewer than his King of the Mountains rival.
Ireland’s Nicolas Roche finished well in the bunch sprint to come home in 17th position and move up six places to 45th in the overall standings. He also holds on to ninth spot in the young rider classification.