Edvald Boasson Hagen (Dimension Data) went down fighting on the penultimate stage of the Tour of Britain. The Norwegian has featured heavily in the sprints so far, having been twice a runner-up as well as having had a win taken away for irregular sprinting, but stage 7 saw him seize the impetus to go on the attack in the final kilometres.
Lying just 19 seconds behind race leader Lars Boom (LottoNL-Jumbo) at the start of the day, the two-time Tour of Britain winner had a third in his sights. And given the hilly nature of the stage’s second half, a race-winning attack wasn’t out of the question. In the end it wasn’t to be, but not for lack of trying.
“It was good. The goal was to be up in front and I was there,” he said while warming down after the stage. “The guys were good in the way they took me into the climb, and yeah that was the plan: to try to follow the front and see what happened.”
ADVERTISEMENT
“I got away in a group but it wasn’t strong enough to ride away from the peloton. I saw [at] 2km to go that we were going to get caught. So I already tried, and then I didn’t have enough for a sprint.”
Near the top of the stage’s final climb, which lay 9km from the finish, Boasson Hagen had escaped along with Gorka Izagirre (Movistar), Laurens De Plus (Quick-Step Floors), Dylan Van Baarle (Cannondale-Drapac) and Dion Smith (Wanty-Groupe Gobert). Despite building a lead of 15 seconds at one point, Van Baarle crashed on the descent, taking De Plus out of the reckoning with him.
After that, the three men that remained were always going to have a hard time keeping the Katusha- and LottoNL-Jumbo-led peloton at bay. Boasson Hagen wasn’t thrilled by the strength of the group, but conceded that his attempt was necessary in order to have any chance of overall success.
You can read more at Cyclingnews.com
via Cyclingnews Latest News http://ift.tt/2wT1fsI
No comments:
Post a Comment