Trek Factory Racing won the opening stage of the Tour of Alberta with an upset-victory over odds-on favourites Orica-GreenEdge in Grande Prairie on Wednesday. They covered the 19.6km course in 22:56, beating the Orica riders by just 0.74 of a second, and eight seconds ahead of third-placed team Katusha.
Orica-GreenEdge's roster looked to be the strongest on paper for the stage, with a team that included Svein Tuft, Luke Durbridge, Jens Mouris, Michael Hepburn, Sam Bewley and Michael Matthews, along with GC rider Adam Yates and support rider Christian Meier.
However, they were not strong enough to overtake the early leaders in the team time trial, Trek Factory Racing, that included Bauke Mollema, Matthew Busche, Marco Coledan, Laurent Didier, Gregory Rast, Hayden Roulston, Jesse Sergent and Kristof Vandewalle.
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Mollema was the first to cross the finish line for Trek Factory Racing and will take the first leader's jersey at the Tour of Alberta as the race heads into stage 2's 171km race in the County of Grande Prairie on Thursday. The team finished with five riders including Roulston, Coledan, Sergent and Busche.
"This was the first TTT win in my life," said Mollema. "It was a big team effort and everyone gave everything he had. It was not planned to lose three guys, the plan was to have eight when we finished, but in the past we have always started too slow."
How it unfolded
You can read more at Cyclingnews.com
via Cyclingnews Latest Race Results http://ift.tt/1JCTvd1
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