On a windy September afternoon, the Fassa Bortolo team worked perfectly to put Ale-Jet Petacchi into position for take-off and once the Tuscan speedster had the finish line in sight, he never slowed down and took his 19th victory of the 2004 season in Zaragoza, Spain ahead of old fox Erik Zabel and Spanish sprinter Oscar Friere.



"I knew it was going to be close because of the winds, which made it a lot harder for a team throughout the stage," explained Petacchi after the stage. "(Fassa Bortolo) worked with T-Mobile because we were both interested in a bunch sprint, but then in the last 50 meters I lost sight of Zabel. I turned round to see where he was and ended up taking the stage by very little, but the important thing was to win." Today was Petacchi's second win on his new Pinarello Dogma FP.