Keukeleire wins third stage as Kessiakoff retains his overall lead in 2011 Int. Osterreich-Rundfahrt
Cofidis, Le Credit En Ligne team’s Jens Keukeleire won the mass sprint of the third stage of 2011 Int Osterreich-Rundfahrt on Tuesday, July 5. Fredrik Kessiakoff retained his overall leader’s yellow jersey.
The race started in Kitzbühel and ended in Pragraten am Grobvenediger. The 22-year-old Belgium took a total of 4 hours, 17 minutes and 8 seconds to cover the distance of 174.5 kilometres.
After winning the stage, Keukeleire told the media, “Such stages suit me, I like the difficult Classics, like the Tour of Flanders or Three Days of West Flanders, which I won last year. This was the 23-year-old Belgian's first victory of the season.”
Previously, in 2010 Jens took the first place in Le Samyn and Nokere-Koerse. He also took the overall lead in Driedaagse van West-Vlaanderen.
Daryl Impey of the NetApp team was the runner-up and Jonas Aaen Jorgensen of Saxo Bank Sungard finished third.
Johannes Fröhlinger (Skil – Shimano) also showed good performance, but he was unable to catch the 23 cyclists and grabbed the 24th spot with a difference of 7 seconds ahead of Chris Butler (BMC Racing Team) and Marcel Wyss (Geox-TMC).
A total of ten cyclists including Gustav Larsson, David Tanner, Robert Hunter, and Roberto Ferrari were disqualified from the stage.
A group of three cyclists made their first breakaway including Marcel Wyss (Geox-TMC), David Wöhrer (Tyrol Team) and Riccardo Chiarini (Androni Giocattoli). All of them worked together and build a lead of few seconds over the peloton. Marcel Wyss took the
first sprint of the stage.
After a few kilometres, the three cyclists were caught by the peloton and Mads Christensen was joined by Martin Velits and Bartosz Huzarski. Christensen took the second sprint.
Nicolas Edet won the title of King of the Mountain with 34 points ahead of Mads Christensen and Greg Van Avermaet. Leopold Konig took the young rider classification ahead of Chris Butler.
Fredrik Kessiakoff took the overall standing with the timing of 11 hours, 23 minutes and 47 seconds, while Mauro Santambrogio was the runner-up with 1 minute and 18 seconds behind Fredrik.
Leopold Konig (Team NetApp) grabbed the third place with a difference of 1 minute and 25 seconds.
The next stage will start in Matrei in Osttirol and end in St. Johann/Alpendorf. All the cyclists will cover a distance of 199.3 kilometres.
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