Rabobank’s Erik Breukink provided Giant’s website with the final analysis of what has been a complicated Tour for the Dutch team - with some real lows, but some real high points as well.
“Winning on the Mont Ventoux with Juan Manuel Garate was a great, great result. If there was one Tour stage we wanted to get a victory on, the Ventoux was the day.”

“That was the toughest mountain stage of the Tour de France 2009, and the one which the whole race had been building towards for three whole weeks. And we won it.”
“A victory like that is worth double or triple a victory on another stage.”

“Juan Manuel will always be remembered now as the man who won on the Mont Ventoux in the year when it was the conclusion of the Tour’s most exciting climbing stage.”
But Breukink recognised that it had been a difficult Tour for Rabobank in many other ways.
“Having said all of that, Garate’s win doesn’t change everything that’s happened before to Rabobank in this race.”

“Denis Menchov’s below-expectations performance and Robert Gesink’s injury and abandon were just two factors that went against us and we had much higher hopes than that.”
“Bad luck though, is only ever part of the problem. You can’t blame all of it on misfortune.”
“We’ll make a full-scale evaluation of what happened with Denis, and find out exactly where it all went wrong - and where it went right.”
“Still, Juan Manuel’s stage win is a great way of ending the Tour, and we can’t be anything but satisfied with that great victory.”