Linus Gerdemann wins second stage of 2011 Tour de Luxembourg: Cycling News
Leopard Trek team’s Linus Gerdemann won the second stage and also took overall leader’s yellow jersey, of 2011 Tour de Luxembourg 2011 on Friday, June 3. Linus took his first victory of this season.
The race started in Schifflange and ended at Differdange. Gerdemann took a total of 5 hours, 16 minutes and 19 seconds to cover the distance of 200.7 kilometres.
After winning the stage, Gerdemann said, "The whole team did incredible work today, it was a perfect day. We knew we wanted to make the stage hard. We wanted to win the stage, and we wanted to keep yellow. We accomplished all of this.”
Arthur Vichot of the FDJ team was runner-up with 9 seconds behind Linus. Jeremie Galland of the Saur-Sojasun team was in third place.
The two riders, Martijn Keizer of Vacansoleil-DCM and Javier Ramirez of Andalucia-Caja Granada got away from the peloton. Both of them worked together and joined Christian Poos of Differdange-Magic-sportfood.de.
After few kilometres, all of them took advantage of 6 minutes and 20 seconds. With 32 kilometres to go, the peloton was divided into several groups.
With 9.4 kilometres in the final circuit, Gerdemann had initiated a three-man breakaway. First time, the 28-year-old, Linus attacked and was joined by Anthony Charteau of the Europcar team and Jurgen Van Goolen of Veranda’s Willems-Accent.
They gained an advantage of more than a minute over the peloton. In the end of the second lap, Gerdemann maintained his speed and again attacked the other two riders. After a few kilometres, he gained a lead ahead of Charteau and Van Goolen and gained victory.
Christian Poos won the mountain's classification, ahead of Anthony Charteau and Alexandre Geniez won the title of young rider classification.
Linus Gerdemann of Leopard Trek was also leading in overall classification with a timing of 10 hours, 8 minutes and 55 seconds. Alexandre Geniez was runner-up with 2 seconds.
Gerdemann said, "I don't want to look too much further ahead yet, we want to win the overall, but for now, I'm enjoying today."
Tony Gallopin of Cofidis, Le Credit En Ligne finished third with the difference of 3 second.
The next stage will start in Eschweiler and end in Roost. All the riders will cover a distance of 186 kilometres.
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