James Oram takes a lead in the opening stage of 2011 Tour de l’Abitibi
New Zealand rider, James Oram, showed his brilliant performance in the first stage and also took overall lead in 2011 Tour de l’Abitibi on Wednesday, July 19.
The race started in Preissac and ended in Amos. The New Zealand rider took a total of 2 hours, 28 minutes and 28 seconds to cover the distance of 112.8 kilometres.
His country-mate, Dion Smith, was the runner-up and Roman Semyonov from Kazakhstan finished third.
A group of seven cyclists crossed the finish-line with the same timing of Oram, while Tileqen Maidos was also in good form and tried his best to catch the leading riders, but failed to maintain his pace and grabbed the eighth place with a difference of 11
seconds, ahead of Setthawut Yordsuwan (Thailand).
Hiroki Nishimura (Japan), Anthony Morel (France) and Tyler Williams (United States) were in tenth, eleventh and twelfth places, respectively.
A group of three cyclists made their first breakaway, including Matthew Lipscomb (United States), Charles Matte (Québec) and Steve Arbault (France). All of them managed to gain a lead of few seconds over the other cyclists, while Charles Matte failed and
Matthew won the first sprint.
However, Matthew was unable to hold his lead and Vitaliy Marayhin and Dion Smith worked together and in the final kilometres Smith increased his pace and took the third sprint of the stage.
Jose Aguire (Mexico) took the first KOM of the day, while Thibaut Boulanger won the second and Smith grabbed third King of Mountain with 5 points.
Vitaliy Marayhin (Kazakhstan) took the title of first year junior rider with a timing of 2 hours, 28 minutes and 26 seconds ahead of Jose Aguire and Sethawut Yordsuwan.
Thibaut Boulanger took the overall mountain classification with 10 points ahead of Smith and Aguire.
James also took the overall standing with a timing of 2 hours, 28 minutes and 18 seconds. Dion was the runner-up with 1 second and Roman Semyonov finished third with 6 seconds, ahead of Oram.
The next stage will start in Macamic and end in Amos. All the cyclists covered the distance of 108 kilometres.
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