First stage of Tour du Faso, a stage with a big cobbled section towards the end of the stage, so first chance for the cobblers to fight for the GC. But with only that section, there’s a chance that those sprinters with minor cobbling skills could survive and fight for the stage win. Remember that with the “F1 bonus-system”, finishing in the top10 of the stage is very important
It’s a short stage, of around 120 kms, and despite that, the bunch has allowed 7 riders to breakaway
Grand Velits Laizer Belgasem Rozsa Schlegel Moyano
Interesting that Sauber sends a great cobbler like Grand in the breakaway
There’s a super high wind present in those roads, and when the gap for the breakaway reached three minutes, Campari panicked, and sent one rider to the front to ride as hard as possible to bring back the breakaway. So echelons coming up, super high pace, intermediate sprint in a few kms. This could get very funny
The problem for Campari is that it looked like they were the only team in chasing now, so after Colon couldn’t work for longer, the rhythm slowed down again, and the breakaway’s advantage rised again
Velits won the first intermediate sprint, ahead of Belgasem and Rozsa
But for the time that the second intermediate sprint came, Campari had put the rest of their squad to work, so while the breakaway took the points and bonus seconds from the sprint, their gap wasn’t bigger than 40 seconds.
And this time Belgasem was better placed in the group ahead of the sprint, so he won it ahead of Rozsa and Grand, who takes a 1-second bonus
Still 50 kms to go, but a group of about 20 riders has been dropped from the bunch, and Machado is there!
But as the breakaway was caught very soon, everything came back together, luckily for Machado and his team
Just 20 kms to go, and the race is about to get to the big cobbled section of today. There has been a split in the group, with 50 riders dropped, with riders like Grand, Lovassy, Veelers, Eeckhout, Hristov, Abraha and of course, Machado
Zhupa comes to the front once the cobbles start, setting a not so high pace, but which probably will be enough to reduce the main group and get riders of useless riders in the cobbles soon. The section is 17 kms long, so plenty of time for attacks yet. Breen, Kluge, Van der Haar and Drucker are all in the first 10 places of the bunch, while riders like Ferreira, Kulppi or Jacobs are around places 20-25
Zhupa’s steady pace is making that with 14 kms to go (10 left of cobbles) the main group has been reduced to just 30-35 riders. All favourites are here, even Machado has made a big comeback to be in the late part of this group
Just 10 kms to go! The pace isn’t really high now, so 32 riders remain in this first group
Belgasem, Minoungou, Jacobs, McLay Kluge, Cominelli De Bondt, Breen, Van der Haar, Verbist Meiler, Drucker, Matsumoto Zhupa, Thymides Van Wyk, Abraha Veelers, Cancellara, Taubel, Grand Eeckhout, Kireva, Oba Ferreira Kulppi Matthews, Breschel Palyi Machado, Ruiz Matzka
Puncture for Eeckhout! A really bad time to get a puncture for Andorra’s leader. But he wasn’t the only one with a puncture, as also his team-mate Kireva, Abraha and Cominelli had puncture in the last moments. And with Matzka, Matsumoto and Matthews being dropped, the first group has now 25 riders, with 7 kms to go
Machado, De Bondt and Thymides are dropped with 5 kms to go. They were so close to make out of the cobbles in the first group
Zhupa makes a big acceleration just before the cobbled section finishes, and the big favourites are forced to chase him
But no one can really follow the Albanian rider, who is opening a gap once the riders got out of the cobbles! And there’s only 3,5 kms left in the stage.
Just 2 kms for Zhupa, who has a very slim margin over 4 riders that are in the first chasing group, with Breen sacrifising himself in favour of Kluge, McLay and Ferreira. Impressive effort of McLay, who has a perfect shot at a stage win now.
What was the main group has been smashed into pieces, with Drucker, Van der Haar, Jacobs, Kulppi, Belgasem (who was in the breakaway), Van Wyk and Breschel in a second chasing group
Final km for Zhupa, who can see how Breen has attacked out of the chasing group, without Ferreira or Kluge responding to that attack.
Drucker has done the same from the second chasing group, and is about to catch Kluge’s group
600 metres for Zhupa, but he’ll have a hard time holding off a storming Breen.
Kluge has finally reacted, but now it’s too late, and the stage win is gone for the leading duo
And Vegard Breen completes his comeback in the sprint, overtaking Eugert Zhupa, in order to win the opening stage here in Faso!
Zhupa finishes second after being the one making all the splits today, and also his team working a lot before the cobbles. Not a bad result for him, but Delvaux power in the cobbles was too much for him
McLay wins the sprint for the third place over Kluge, with Drucker coming in fifth place, ahead of a Ferreira that struggled in the sprint, which was expected against some great sprinters. And Van der Haar gets seventh to increase the joyness of Delvaux’s manager
Kulppi wins the sprint for 8th place ahead of a fantastic Belgasem, Van Wyk, Jacobs and Breschel. And you know what? Surprise, surprise, no gaps between the first 12 riders
At least, a 1’22 split was given for the next group, with a lot of Sauber riders, with Taubel, Veelers, Cancellara and Grand. Meiler finishes in this group too to get a massive lead in the U25 standings
Great win for Vegard Breen and Delvaux, who obviously takes the GC lead here. 7 seconds over Zhupa, 10 over McLay, 13 over Kluge and so on
9 riders couldn’t finish within time limit and are out of this race. Their names are Schinnagel, Albanese, Petili, Urcelay, Kenyeres, Hussein, Vermeulen, Canecky and Flakemore
