Ben Swift wins opening stage of 2011 Amgen Tour of California: Cycling News
Sky Procycling team's Ben Swift, showed marvellous performance in the opening stage 2011 Amgen Tour of California from Nevada City to Sacramento, on Monday, May 17. He also earned the general classification leader's jersey.
Ben Swift was in firm control of the three finishing circuits and covered the distance of 122.8 kilometres in 2 hours, 47 minutes and 12 seconds.
After winning the stage, the 23-year-old Swift said, "When I looked at the race, there were four of five stages where I thought I could do well, including yesterday. Unfortunately, we didn't race yesterday, so there are three or four more left"
It's the fifth win of the season for Swift, after winning the fifth stage of Tour of Romandie. He also won the fifth stage of Vuelta a Castilla y Leon and second stage of the Tour Down Under earlier this month.
Ben soared across the finish-line comfortably ahead of Slovakia Peter Sagan. Mathew Harley was also in good from and grabbed third place.
The group of four riders, Ben Jacques-Maynes, Timon Seubert, James Driscoll, and Laszlo Bodrogi made first break earlier in the race.
All of them built advantage of four minutes, but after 14 kilometres three riders were caught by the peloton. While Jacques-Maynes maintain his speed and took lead for a further kilometre.
In the final circuit, Saxo-Bank moved to the front of the bunch and joined the Sky team to build up their lead.
However, in the last three finishing circuit, Swift had several team-mates at the front of the pack and with the help of his team-mates, Swift crossed the line without any difficulty.
Swift said, "When we came to the (final finishing) circuits the pace of the peloton really picked up and the team guided me the whole way, "The team was absolutely fantastic, everybody did their job down to the letter and I can't thank them enough."
Previously, the stage one was cancelled due to severe weather condition. The weather conditions also took its toll on second stage. The organisers had to shift the stage start from Squaw Valley to Nevada City due to snowy conditions. The stage was finished
with three circuits around in order to get hold of the lost mileage.
Swift is also leading in the overall classification with the timing of 2 hours, 47 minutes and 2 seconds, while Peter Sagan is in second place with four second behind Swift. Mathew Harley Goss finished third with the difference of six seconds.
The next stage will start in Auburn and end in Modesto. All the riders will cover the distance of 196.2 kilometres.
Tags: