Garmin’s Tom Peterson after UPCC Stage 5

Several journalists caught up with Tom Peterson after stage 5 finished to talk to him about the break-away he rode in for most of the day with Andy Schleck, Ivan Basso, and Laurens Ten Dam. Here’s what he had to say as he took a breather on the steps of the Garmin-Cervélo bus.

Tom Peterson, Garmin-Cervélo, after UPCC stage 5

On Andy’s attack on Swan Mountain:

“Apparently Andy had other ideas, and when he went I thought: let’s see who else is going to go, is it just going to be just Andy? Ten Dam tapped me and said ‘Come on, we gotta work together,’ and then I was like oh, just stay on his wheel and get over and we’ll chase him down after that. I wasn’t really going that great on the final.”

You did a lot of work on the front during the race; how much did that take out of you in the last 5K?

“Yeah I definitely should have taken it a little easier. We wanted to put pressure on RadioShack and so we wanted the break to get out there. The Colombian guy dropped off. No one wanted him in there. I wanted him in there, to put pressure on RadioShack, but everyone else in the break-away didn’t want him in there and so we ended up just attacking and dropping him — I don’t know what happened exactly. I think Basso told him to go back.”

Are the Colombians doing less than you guys hoped they would in this race overall?

“Yeah, I kind of thought they’d be more aggressive, I don’t know. Yeah if they had been attacking on the first climb it would have caused a lot of problems for RadioShack. They didn’t do anything and I’m not sure they could have.”