Edvald Boasson Hagen begins perfect day for Sky after taking Vattenfall Cyclassic 2011
Sky team’s Edvald Boasson Hagen continued his late season winning streak and took the Vattenfall Cyclassics 2011 in Hamburg on Sunday, August 21.
The 24-year-old Norwegian professional road racing cyclist took the total of 4 hours, 49 minutes and 40 seconds to cover the distance of the race.
In the final 500 metres, Norwegian easily beat the Gerald Ciolek (Quickstep Cycling Team) and Borut Bozic (Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling Team).
Recently, he won the six and seventeen stage of Tour de France and also took the sixth stage and overall victory in Eneco Tour. He also grabbed the runner-up spot in Tour of Oman.
Directeur sportif Servais Knaven said, “It was perfect again…this group have been riding together in many races this season, they know each other so well know and they do everything for each other.”
He further added, “You need good riders which we've got and if they all work together as well as that then you get performances like this. They are riding strong, they keep on winning and it's great to see. It was another brilliant day.”
The peloton split and leaving behind the four cyclists including, Mark Renshaw (HTC-Highroad), Andre Greipel (Omega Pharma-Lotto) and Robbie McEwen (RadioShack) and Robbie Hunter.
Quickstep sprinter tried his best and worked hard to open the gap but Ciolek failed to challenge the Sky team sprinter.
In the first climb of the stage, the group of five cyclists managed to get away and went clear including, Lars Bak (HTC-Highroad), Jan Barta (NetApp), Thomas De Gendt (Topsport Vlaanderen-Mercator), Pavel Brutt (Katusha) and Daniel Sesma (Euskaltel-Euskadi).
All of them managed to gain a lead of three minutes over the peloton but Sesma was unable to hold the pace and dropped back. Although, the other four cyclists working well together but all of them after few kilometers caught by the peloton.
The nine cyclists, with Brutt along with the Alan Perez, Jurgen Roelandts and the other cyclists were split from the field but the peloton came back together.
The Katusha and Liquigas team tried to make a gap but the Sky team increased their pace and held off as Hagen managed to cross the line first to take victory.
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