Welcome to the first stage of this new Pro Tourr-ace, Criterium International. A 3 stages long race which pretty much everyone can win. The sprinters are the favourites here at this first stage with Freire being the main guy to look out for. But overall, it must be the time triallers who can also climb the small hills on the third stage, that being e.g. Zabriskie, Ignatiev, etc.
Anyway, first stage is 190 km long, and we have a tv-break of four riders: Ten Dam, Moreni, Haueisen and Taillefour who were dropped very early on. And shortly after him, it was Haueisen who let go, leaving Ten Dam and Moreni in front. They reached a gap of 9 minutes until the peloton started doing some work. 20 km later, Taillefour was caught, and the gap to the two escapees in front was down to 5 minutes. With 50 km to go, the two riders were nearly caught, but then Quinziato and Coppel went on and decided to breakaway.
It didn't do much, though. Coppel was caught again, Quinziato lasted for a bit longer, but was then reeled in by Wikipedia. Before that, he did manage to take the first mountain points of this tour, though. Vinokourov took the 2nd mountain sprint - and then hell was loose again. Attack by race favourite Ignatiev followed by Boogerd and Sanchez Gonzales, this being with 23 km to go.
It only lasted for 5 km, and then they were caught again, and Vinokourov went on to take the third mountain sprint too. The sprint trains could begin to form. And so they did -- or, well, not really, but anyway: Van Impe leading, then Perget, Traksel, Bjelkark, Duque, Bazajev .. and Freire is there too.
1 km to go. Duque, Bazajev, Freire, Napolitano. It could be any of them who's going to win this stage.
But it's Freire - not very surprisingly - who takes the win ahead of Bazajev, Duque, Napolitano and Docker.
