For the third year running Fernando Gaviria (Quick-Step Floors) has opened his season with victory in Argentina, besting Italy's Elia Viviani in a sprint finish into San Juan. The Colombian delivered on his favourite status after his team took control inside the final kilometres of the race and Tom Boonen did the lead out duties
The flat stage 142.5km stage, starting and finishing in the city of San Juan, seemed straight forward on paper and that's how it played out for the most part, but the race was plunged into chaos in the final couple of kilometres as half of the peloton took a wrong turn.
"Half of the bunch to the right, and the other half to the left," Darwin Atapuma, in the wrong group, told Cyclingnews on the finish line. "The first group saw there was space on the right, and went that way, but they then indicated for riders to go left."
ADVERTISEMENT
Riders scrambled to get back on course and a fragmented and confused peloton crossed the line. The race jury decided that all riders would be awarded the same time.
Despite the chaos, Gaviria rode on to take a commanding victory. Before the race there were question marks over leadership at the QuickStep team, with Tom Boonen stating his desire to get a result and get the ball rolling in the final season of his career.
After today the directeurs sportifs will find it tough to remove him from the role of leadout man, which he performed so well as QuickStep predictably dominated the final kilometre, with Maximiliano Richeze the last man before Boonen. There are four more sprint stages left in the remaining six stages of the race and Gaviria looks set to add to his tally, while it remains to be seen whether he'll repay the favour to Boonen later on.
You can read more at Cyclingnews.com
via Cyclingnews Latest Race Results http://ift.tt/2koJbSe
No comments:
Post a Comment