The first stage of the Tour de Beauce this year is a 167km stage that appears to favour the fast men. That is, if they can get over that final steep section that tops out with 4km to go. There aren’t many top sprinters here, but the favourites are Giaux, Abdallah and Bazajev.
It takes about 15km for the first attack to come. It is lead by Juliano Polito.
He is joined by: Scott Thwaites Carlos Verona David O’Loughlin Luke Durbridge Tom Dumoulin
Bridging up not far after that are: Edoardo Girardi Bjorn Selander
All of them come together without much disagreement from the peleton. No one here should pose too many troubles for the leaders or the sprinters. Cyclevox having two men in the break is a good effort by them.
Rapha and Bianchi control the pace on the front together and this keeps the gap to the break fairly low. As the break go over the mountain point for today their lead is at 7’30” but there are still 100km still to ride.
Up front, it is Thwaites who leads them over, ahead of Dumoulin and then Selander. No one looks that interested in taking the points despite the fact that whoever gets the most points on this climb and the next will wear the jersey for at least one day.
At the sprint point on the base of the descent Verona takes the points ahead of Pulito and then Thwaites.
In the peleton Rothaus have started to help out Bianchi and Rapha, and Pirelli is pitching in as well. This is the sort of cooperation that has so often been missing in the Continental races.
The second sprint rapidly approaches and this time it is Selander who sprints to take the points ahead of Thwaites and Dumoulin. With 64km remaining the gap is down to 5 minutes.
The gap holds fairly steady on the flat section leading to the last KOM climb, but once the peleton hits it the gap crumbles. Christopher Froome gets on the front of the bunch and really puts the hammer down.
Once again no one seems too interested in the mountain points. Girardi leads the group over ahead of Durbridge and then Selander, but Thwaites picks up some of the minor points and that will put him in the jersey for one day at least. The gap has falled to 1’12” with 25.5km to go. The catch looks fairly inevitable.
As usually happens in these situations the break starts to attack each other. It is O’Loughlin who manages to get clear under the 20km to go banner, with a 40” gap over his compatriots. Dumoulin is desperately trying to bridge up to him but is caught in no man’s land. He does eventually pull himself up, but he is on the rivet.
Not all good news for Cyclevox, however, as one of their domestiques Skenjaer falls. He isn’t able to get back in and indeed he looks like he could well be injured.
With 14km to go Hayden Roulston puts in an attack. If he can stay away to the short climb then he might be able to make this.
Red Bull are really putting the hammer down for Giaux, however, and they are pulling hard. They catch the breakaway riders who couldn’t follow O’Loughlin’s acceleration. Roulston catches the two leaders but the gap is only 24” with 11km remaining.
Red Bull have no trouble shutting them down and the race is back together with 10km remaining.
But that doesn’t stop people from trying. With 7km remaining Ziegler, Roulston and Kovalev go. All 3 of these men are strong time trialists and if they can keep a stronger pace than the teams of the sprinters are willing to set then they might be in with a chance.
Their gap gets out to about 30” and then on the climb they can’t quite keep their pace high enough. It is Adam Hansen who makes the catch with 4km remaining. This has caused the race to be very strung out, however, so the odds of a lead-out forming are quite slim indeed, particularly given some of the sprinters have drifted back in the peleton.
Red Bull just keep tapping out a high pace on the front, but don’t form a train. With only 1000 metres to the line the first sprinter really pounces. It is Tiziano Dall'Antonia, who wants to go for a long one!
He gets a gap and is looking strong, but Giaux has jumped out from behind his teammate Hansen and is closing fast!
But he has left it too late and Dall’Antonia gets a great stage victory!
Giaux is in second and Hansen third, meaning Red Bull will have to be happy with the 2 other spots on the podium. Busche positioned himself well over the hill and is in fourth. Abdallah struggled a bit but accelerated into fifth. Martynenko is sixth, Moreno makes it another Red Bull man in the top ten with seventh. Van Ooijen is eighth, Matthews ninth and Bazajev tenth.
Abdallah takes the overall lead, as well as the points jersey. Thwaites gets the mountain jersey without having to really try for it. Selander puts his bonus seconds to good use to take the young rider’s jersey and fourth place overall.
