Bennati wins final stage and Kessiakoff wraps up overall lead in 2011 Int. Osterreich- Rundfahrt
Leopard Trek team’s Daniele Bennati won mass sprint of the final stage of 2011 Int. Osterreich-Rundfahrt on Sunday, July 10. Fredrik Kessiakoff maintained his overall leader’s yellow jersey.
The race started in Podersdorf am Neusiedler See and ended in Vienna. The 30-years-old Italian cyclist took a total of 2 hours, 35 minutes and 21 seconds to cover the distance of 133.8 kilometres.
After winning the stage, Bennati said, “I really suffered the last few days, I'm so happy, about his fourth season victory. I can barely believe it. This is an unbelievable win. It has been two months since my last race. In my first race back, I didn't know what to expect.”
Recently, Bennati took the first place in first, third and fifth stage of Circuit de la Sarthe. He also took the second place in Gent-Wevenlgem and overall third place in Tour of Qatar.
Martin Velits of HTC-Highroad was the runner-up and Roger Kluge of Skil–Shimano finished third.
Chris Sutton of Sky suffered a big crash in the final three kilometres and grabbed the third place ahead of Rene Weissinger and Jens Keukeleire.
After the start of the race the group of six cyclists made their first breakaway including, Dominik Hrinkow (Vorarlberg), Michal Kwiatkowski (RadioShack), Mads Christensen (Saxo Bank-SunGard), Timothy Roe (BMC), Mitchell Docker (Skil-Shimano) and Alexandre Pliuschin (Katusha).
All the cyclists were working together and build a lead of not more than a minute over the peloton. Alexandre Pliuschin took the first, second and third sprint of the stage.
Fredrik Kessiakoff took the overall lead with a timing of 26 hours, 59 minutes and 26 seconds, while Leopold Konig was runner-up with 2 minutes and 28 seconds behind Fredrik.
Fredrik said, "I'm just so happy, That's the biggest success in my cycling career. I can´t compare this success with my MTB-World Cup medal, that happened in my former cycling career."
Carlos Sastre of Geox-TMC was in the third place with a difference of 3 minutes and 5 seconds.
Greg Van Avermaet took the overall points classification with 43 points ahead of Daryl Impey. Nicolas Edet won the King of Mountain (KOM) title with 38 points ahead of Alexandre Geniez. Leopold Konig wrapped up as the best young rider classification title ahead of Petr Ignatenko.
Tags: