Avermaet wins sixth stage and Kessiakoff retains his overall lead in 2011 Int. Osterreich-Rundfahrt
BMC Racing team’s Greg Van Avermaet won the mass sprint of the sixth stage of 2011 Int, on July 8, 2011. Osterreich-Rundfahrt. Fredrik kessiakoff maintained his overall leader’s yellow jersey.
The race started in Hainburg an der Donau and ended in Bruck an der Leitha. The 26-year-old Belgian professional cyclist took a total of 3 hours, 19 minutes and 11 seconds to cover the distance of 155 kilometres.
After winning the stage, Avermaet said, "I am really happy. It's been a long year for me, I think it was two years ago that I last won a race. I'm really happy to do it in the BMC Racing Team jersey, too. With 4km to go, the gap was only 25 seconds, so it
was really close.”
Matthew Brammeier of HTC-Highroad was the runner-up and Daniele Bennati of Leopard Trek finished in the third spot.
A group of thirteen cyclists made their first breakaway, which included Daniele Bennati, Robert Wagner, Matthew Brammeier, Jaroslaw Marycz, Gregory Rast, Greg Van Avermaet, Nikolay Trusov, Michael Barry, Andrey Mizurov, Francesco Ginanni, Aleksejs Saramotins,
Daniele Ratto and De Negri.
All of them worked together and build a lead of four minutes. The two teams, Skil-Shimano and NetApp, cut down the two-minute mark, but with 10 kilometres to go, the two cyclists Wagner and Rast, dropped out from the group.
However, the other ten cyclists worked together for a lead. Julien Fouchard took the first sprint ahead of Benjamin King. Greg Van Avermaet managed to gain a lead and with the help of his team, he crossed the finish line first ahead of the other riders.
Benjamin King took the first mountain ahead of Julien Fouchard. Gregory Rast increased his pace and launched an attack over the peloton and took the second mountain. In the last 10 kilometres, Nicolai Trusov took the third mountain ahead of Jaroslaw Marycz.
Fredrik Kessiakoff took the overall lead with a timing of 23 hours, 48 minutes and 33 seconds. Mauro Santambrogio was the runner-up with 1 minute and 18 seconds behind Swedish. Leopold Koening finished in the third spot with a difference of 1 minute and
26 seconds.
Greg Van Avermaet also took the points classification with 15 points ahead of Matthew Brammeier and Daniele Bennati.
Greg further added, "It was not so important to me. But I wanted to have a stage win. I've had a really good year. The only thing I didn't have was a win. So for me, today is really special."
The next stage race will start from Podersdorf am Neusiedler See (ITT) and all the riders will cover the distance of 30.1 kilometres.
Tags: