Guillaume Levarlet wins first stage and celebrates overall lead in Tour du Gevaudan
Saur-Sojasun team’s Guillaume Levarlet put in a brilliant performance in the first stage of Tour du Gévaudan Languedoc-Roussillon 2011 on Saturday, September 24 as he also took the overall leader’s yellow jersey.
The race started in La Grand Combe and finished in Langogne. The 26-year-old French road bicycle racer showed some powerful skills in the last kilometres and set the fastest time of 3 hours, 39 minutes and 22 seconds to cover the distance of 149 kilometres.
His team-mate Jonathan Hivert was runner-up with one second down to the Sprinter while Paul Voss (Endura Racing) finished third with a difference of four seconds ahead of Perrig Quemeneur (Team Europcar) and Johan Le Bon (Bretagne-Schuller).
The group of four cyclists made their first breakaway lead including, Tony Hurel (Team Europcar), Julien Simon (Saur-Sojasun), Pascual Orengo Lopez (Burgos 2016-Castilla Y Leon) and Ricardo Garcia Ambroa (Orbea Continental).
All of them worked hard and managed to get away while Julien Simon launched an attack with Orengo Lopez but failed to gain points as Tony Hurel won the first intermediate sprint with 10 points. The new group formed after a few kilometres and David Clarke
and Jerome Cousin worked well together but Cousin increased his pace to take the second sprint.
However, in the final sprint the three cyclists including Jonathan Hivert, Levarlet and Paul Voss managed to gain an advantage of a few seconds over the peloton and got away. Voss and Hivert failed to maintain their pace and Levarlet raised his speed to
cross the finish line first for an impressive victory.
In the first climb the three cyclists Sebastien Fournet Fayard (Veranda Rideau Sarthe), David Clarke (Endura Racing) and Kevin Lalouette (Roubaix Lille Metropole) worked well and took points but Fayard took the first climb while Clarke grabbed the second
climb of the stage.
The ten cyclists including, Loïc Desriac (Roubaix Lille Metropole), Matthieu Converset (Avc Aix En Provence) and Romain Ramier (Avc Aix En Provence Aix En Provence) were disqualified.
Previously, Levarlet took first place in Tour du Jura in 2007 and also won La Cote Picardi in 2006. He secured the overall lead with a time of 3 hours, 39 minutes and 12 seconds while Jonathan Hivert was in second spot five seconds down to the Frenchman.
Paul Voss was in third place with a difference of 10 seconds ahead of Perrig Quemeneur. David Clarke took the overall King of Mountain jersey and Levarlet also took the lead in the combined standing. The final stage starts in Mende as all the cyclists will
cover a distance of 162.4 kilometres. It will be interesting to see which of these talented cyclists will win the exciting tour.
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