Jesse Sergent begins perfect day for RadioShack after taking Charentes 2011 – Cycling Update
RadioShack team’s Jesse Sergent showed some tremendous form in the fourth stage of time trial of Tour du Poitou Charentes 2011 on Thursday, August 25. He also takes overall leader’s yellow jersey.
The race started and finished in Chatellerault. The 23-year-old, New Zealand racing cyclists took the total of 25 minutes and 10 seconds to cover the distance of 20.5 kilometres.
His team-mate Michal Kwiatkowski was runner-up with 18 seconds down to Jesse. Jean-Christophe Peraud of AG2R La Mondiale finished third with the difference of 36 seconds.
The previous stage winner, Yauheni Hutarovich of FDJ was unable to hold his lead and grabbed the 130th place with the difference of 3 minutes and 47 seconds.
After winning the stage, Jesse was very happy and told the media, "It was a pretty hard TT. It was harder than I thought after seeing it on reco. It was up and down constantly. The climbs always took you out of your rhythm but I received such good direction
from Demol and I had really good legs today."
Alex Dowsett (Sky Procycling), Martin Elmiger (AG2R La Mondiale) and Sam Bewley (Team RadioShack) were in fourth, fifth and sixth place respectively.
Previously, Jesse took Prologue and overall standing of Driedaagse van West-Vlaanderen. He also secured fourth stage of Eneco Tour and runner-up spot in Track World championships.
He further added, "It's a tough finish tomorrow with a climb we have to do three times, but we have a strong team here. Our TT result shows that. I think we are ready to take what comes."
Wilco Kelderman (Rabobank Continental Team) took the title of King of mountain title with 16 points while Arkimedes Arguelyes Rodriges (Katusha) was second place with 12 points and Romain Delalot finished third with 8 points.
Sergent also took the overall classification with the timing of 11 hours, 11 minutes and 19 seconds while Michal Kwiatkowski was runner-up with 18 seconds behind Jesse. Jean-Christophe Peraud was in third place with the difference of 36 seconds.
The next stage will run in Saint-Jacques de Thouars and end in Poitiers and all the cyclists will cover the distance of 171.4 kilometres.
Tags: