Lars Boom won opening stage of 2011 Criterium du Dauphine: Cycling News
Rabobank team’s Lars Boom showed an excellent performance in the opening stage of 2011 Criterium du Dauphine in Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne on Sunday, June 5. He also took the overall leader yellow jersey.
The 25-year-old Boom took a total of 6 minutes and 18 seconds to cover a distance of 5.4 kilometres.
Alexandre Vinokourov of the Pro-Astana team tried his best to cross the finish-line, but he failed and grabbed the runner's-up spot with two seconds behind Boom.
Bradley Wiggins of the Sky Procycling suffered a mechanical problem in the final sprint and gained the third place with a difference of 5 seconds.
After winning the stage, Boom told the media, “My prologue is good if I train hard, It was a very nice prologue, 5.4km with a small hill, so it was perfect for me. I didn’t expect it, I had some problems with my knee last week, since the Tour of California.
I’m happy it’s going well now and I’m happy to have won.”
Recently, professional cyclo-cross, Boos won National Cyclo-cross Championship and also won prologue of Tour of Qatar.
Meanwhile, Liquigas-Cannondale team’s Ivan Basso was also in good form, but he was in 102 spot with 34 seconds behind Lars. Tony Martin set an early break in the race, but he failed to close the gap of Cyrille Lemoine and managed to gain the 34th place in
the stage.
In the final hour, the rain stopped and after a few minutes the road dried up. As a result, Blel Kadri gained an advantage over Joost Posthuma.
Sebastien Hinault of AG2R La Mondiale won the King of Mountain (KOM) of the day. Samuel Dumoulin was in second spot and Julien Simon finished third.
Lars Boom was took title points classification with 15 points ahead of Alexandre Vinokourov and Bradley Wiggins. HTC-Highroad team’s John Degenkolb grabbed the young rider leader’s white jersey with timing of 6 minutes and 24 seconds.
Blel Kadri of Saur – Sojasun team was in third place with difference of 5 seconds.
The next stage will start in Albertville and end in Saint-Pierre-de-Chartreuse. All the riders will cover a distance of 144 kilometres.
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