Denis Galimzyanov win first stage, Fabian Cancellara retain overall lead in 2011 Tour de Luxembourg
Katusha team’s Denis Galimzyanov won the first stage of 2011 Tour de Luxembourg in Bascharage on Thursday, June 2.
The 24-year-old, Galimzyanov took a total of 4 hours, 48 minutes and 32 seconds to cover a distance of 192.8 kilometres.
After winning the stage, Denis told the media, "I'm very happy about this victory, I definitely have to thank the whole team for the huge work done today. My teammates placed me in a perfect position in order to play my hand in the final sprint.”
Recently, Denis won the second stage of Three Days of de Panne and won the points classification. He also grabbed second place in Grote Scheldeprijs.
Greg Henderson of the Sky Procycling team was the runner-up. Greg team-mates, Davide Appollonio finished third and Mathew Hayman came fourth with the difference of 3 seconds.
He further added, "I was behind Henderson's wheel. I took advantage of his draft and I passed in the last 150 metres.”
The prologue winner, Fabian Cancellara of the Leopard Trek team was in 27th place.
In the beginning of the race, the group of four riders made their first break-away, including, Christian Poos (Differdange-Magic-sportfood.de), Jens Mouris (Vacansoleil-DCM), Arnaud Labbe (Cofidis) and Bert Scheirlinckx (Landbouwkrediet).
All of them built an advantage of 4 minutes and 5 seconds before being pegged back by Cancellara’s. In the final 5 kilometres, all of them were caught by the peloton, but Sebastien Turgot of Europcar attacked and with help of Liuigas-Cannondale and Sky team,
the Frenchman got away in the sprint.
Bert Scheirlinckx, tried his best to cross the Poos, but Christian Poos had good legs and won all the three climb of the day and grabbed the KOM jersey ahead of other cyclists.
Fabian Cancellara maintained his overall leader’s yellow jersey with the timing of 4 hours, 52 minutes and 17 seconds. Damien Gaudin of Europcar was the runner-up with 5 seconds behind Fabian.
Jimmy Casper of Saur Sojasun was in third place with a difference of 8 seconds, while the stage winner, Dennis Galimzyanov, was in 37th place. Galimzyanov also won the young rider's title.
The next stage will start in Schifflange and end in Differdange. The cyclists will cover a distance of 200.7 kilometres.
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