Paris Tour : Petacchi wins, Euskaltel nowhere

It seems like Euskaltel is still in the hype of the Vuelta because as far as I know, they didn't do much in Paris-Tours. The best one was Iñaki Isasi with a 29th place, which is not good at all. The best riders from Euskaltel at the moment, Samuel and Koldo didn't even finish. I can understand this from Samuel because he has still Lombardia next week but Koldo should have sprinted for the last time this season. *I just read on the Euskaltel site that Koldo fell and left the race because of this.*

In the race there was an early escape with David Boucher, Manuel Quinziato and a young promissing Belgian Serge Pauwels. Quinziato escaped from the group but at 8 km from the finish his story was over. Another Belgian, Gilbert, tried to escape together with Kroon and Pozzato, but with the sprint teams behind them it was an useless effort. So it became a sprint and Petacchi showed himself once again the best sprinter before Chicchi and Freire.

Results
1. Alessandro Petacchi Milram 5:32:37
2. Francesco Chicchi Liquigas ST
3. Oscar Freire Rabobank ST
...
29. Iñaki Isasi ST
39. Alan Perez ST
41. Igor Anton ST
97. Juan Jose Oroz +0:48