The 10th stage of the Tour de France took riders into the Pyrenees for the first summit finish of this year’s race. Chris Froome (Team Sky) showed his class to take a convincing win. MTN-Qhubeka p/b Samsung put on a good showing too, to have three riders placed in the top 25.
MTN-Qhubeka were looking forward to the first climbing day as the climbers could stretch their legs for the first time. The experienced Serge Pauwels brought the team into a good position to start the climb, as Movistar then set a violent pace from the foot of the climb. In no time at all the peloton was down to less than 40 riders with Pauwels, Jacques Janse van Rensburg and Louis Meintjes all still part of the front group. Riders continued to drop, one by one as the climb started to bare its teeth. With 10km to go there were only 25 odd riders left, a number of favourites already dropped, yet the three MTN-Qhubeka climbers remained in the front group. At this point Team Sky took control and the race subsequently blew to pieces.
Pauwels held on to the front group up to about 7km to go, where soon after Froome made his race-winning attack. The Belgian then went on to cross the line 14th while South African champion Janse van Rensburg, rode an intelligent race, pacing himself well to finish in 18th place. Meintjes came in a few spots back in 24th, to place MTN-Qhubeka in 5th place in the team stage classification.
Serge Pauwels on his stage finish today; “My initial goal was to be in the long breakaway but after trying in those first few kilometres I felt I had good legs after the rest day. In the final I was surprised that I was able to follow the best for such a long time. I didn’t want to get in the way of the real GC guys so at first I gave them some space but then I saw Nibali got dropped and I still had good legs. I just kept riding within my own limits. This is a great result for me. I am happy to have been given so much confidence by the team.”
via Bicycling » Tour de France http://ift.tt/1dZ6xFV
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