90th Tour de France - July 5-27, 2003

2003 Tour de France rider journals

Photo: © AFP

Fred Rodriguez: Fast Freddie's Fables

Nationality: USA
Team: Vini Caldirola - So.di

This is the fourth Tour de France for the Colombian-born Vini Caldirola - So.di rider whose back-to-back USPRO championships in 2000 and 2001 earned him the nickname 'Captain America'.

Tour de France entries

• Stage 14 & 15 - Gut buster: Forced abandon
• Rest day to Stage 13 - Survival: the name of the game
• Stage 8 to rest day - Rest & relaxation... For a day
• Stages 4-7 - Hot roads, hotheads; Petacchi incredible
• Prologue - Fourth Tour and looking for more

So far this year, the 29-year-old sprinter has won stages at the Tour of Rhodes and Tour of Georgia - and might have done better than second overall at Georgia had he not been controversially penalised by officials for pacing behind his team car to rejoin the peloton after a crash.

Fast Freddy says he has just one target at the Tour: to win a stage. He'll be keeping us informed of his progress toward that goal in his Tour de France diary.

• Fred Rodriguez - July 2003 interview

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