Sep 17, 2009
18th stage: Talavera de la Reina – Avila, 187km

The riders had to deal with three categorized climbs today on a route that finished with a short climb to the city walls of Avila. As promised, Tadej staged an attack, together with another 15 riders. They eventually took a lot of time from the peloton, but the pace in the final part of the race proved too fast for Tadej. He finished 11th, 57 seconds behind Philip Deignan (Cervélo TestTeam).

The attack happened on the 1st category climb to Mijares. The peloton reached the top of the last categorized climb, Boqueron, 8:40 behind the escapees. On the descent Deignan and Kreuziger (Liquigas) managed to make the gap and they held on to their advantage all the way to the finish. On the short climb to the city walls of Avila, Deignan was stronger.

Tadej crossed the finish line 11th, 57 seconds behind the winner. The overall favourites came in almost 10 minutes behind. In the general classification Tadej climbed to 30th place (48:50 behind Valverde). Bad performance. Bad. I tried everything, but I wasn't strong enough. I have obviously lost too much power in the last week.