Jimmy Casper wins final stage, Romain Feillu takes overall lead at Tour de Picardie 2011
Saur-Sojasun team’s Jimmy Casper showed an excellent performance in the third stage from Charly-sur-Marne to Peronne on Sunday, May 15, 2011.
The 32-year-old Frenchman took a total of 4 hours, 32 minutes and 58 seconds to cover the distance of 189.5 kilometres and win the stage.
Jimmy easily defeated Filippo Pozzato of the Katusha Team in the final sprint, which put the Italian into second place. The overall race leader Romain Feillu of the Vacansoleil-DCM team managed a good performance in the stage to claim the third spot.
125 cyclists started the race with Gert Steegmans being the main absentee due to a crash he suffered earlier. This stage was difficult for the cyclists because there were three sprints and five mountains in the stage.
In the beginning of the race, a group of 20 riders peeled off the front of the peloton. The group of five riders made first breakaway in the race included Mathieu Halleguen (Bretagne Schuller), Evert Verbyst (Verandas Willems-Accent), Zdenek Stybar (Quick
Step), Jens Debusschere (Omega Pharma-Lotto) and Cyril Lemoine. (Saur-Sojasun)
All of them worked together to build a maximum advantage of 2 minutes over the peloton. However, the group maintained its speed and worked hard to keep the five cyclists in check.
In the first sprint, Aidis Kruopis was the first to finish the round ahead of Mathieu Drujon and Rony Martias. Mathieu Halleguen sped up and took the second sprint ahead of the other two cyclists.
The break lead was down to 1 minute and 30 seconds but Landbouwkrediet worked hard in the final circuit to protect the lead of Juodvalkis.
With 14 kilometres remaining in the final sprint, the peloton tried to take a lead but Casper was too fast for the Italian rider Filippo Pozzato and crossed the finish line without any difficulty.
Recently, Jimmy Casper won the Grand Prix de Denain, the first stage of the Tour of Oman and the third stage of the Volta a Portugal.
The stage two winner, Romain Feillu took a lead in the overall standing with a timing of 12 hours and 1 minute.
Kenny Dehaes was the runner-up as he was 8 minutes behind Feillu. Filippo Pozzato finished third, with the same timing as of Kenny.
Tags: