Niels Albert celebrates overall victory in Tour Alsace 2011 - Cycling News
BKCP – Powerplus team’s Niels Albert showed a tremendous effort in the second stage and also took the overall leader’s yellow jersey in Tour Alsace 2011 on Thursday, July 28.
The race started in Strasbourg and ended in Bischoff Sheim. The 25-year-old, Belgium professional cyclo-cross racing cyclists took the total of 3 hours, 49 minutes and 33 seconds to cover the distance of 153.8 kilometres.
After winning the stage, Niels Albert said, "I attacked in the last climber, in the last climb, I ensured to keep my strength for the final. I achieved my goal with a stage victory. The leader's jersey, I will not defend it. We will see how (for the next
step)."
Alex Meenhorst (Team Differdange - Magic-Sportfood.de) also in good form and tried his best to take a lead but failed to hold his pace and grabbed fifth place with the difference of 40 seconds ahead of Florian Guillou (Bretagne – Schuller) and Peter Kusztor
(Atlas Personal).
Geoffrey Soupe (FDJ), Flavien Dassonville (Big Mat - Auber 93) and Fabian Bruno (Team NSP) were disqualified from the stage.
With 78 kilometres to go, the group of three cyclists made their first breakaway including, Clément Koretzky (A.V.C. Aix-en-Provence), Alexander Wetterhall (Endura Racing) and Iker Camano Ortuzar (Endura Racing).
All of them managed to gain a lead of a few seconds over the peloton. Koretzky took the first sprint of the stage, with 135 kilometres to go, the three leading cyclists were caught by the peloton and new group is formed including Sondre Gjerdevik Sörveit,
Vegard Stake Laengen and Florian Guillou. Vegard launched an attack but failed and Sondre took the second sprint.
The five cyclists took a part in the first mountain of the stage and Vegard Stake Laegen took the first climb and Koretzky took the second climb. With just a few kilometres to go, Langen again launched an attack and secured the third and fourth climb.
Albert took the overall lead with the timing of 6 hours, 47 minutes and 6 seconds while Jean-Marc Bideau was runner-up 8 seconds behind the Belgian.
Niels further added, “I am only 90% of my top condition. In 2009, I had to block the Tour Alsace and I do not want this year with the World Championship in Belgium (Koksijde) I will be 100% this winter, most importantly for me, because I want my Belgian
champion's jersey in mind.”
Dimitri Le Boulch (Big Mat - Auber 93) was in third place with the difference of 10 seconds ahead of Stian Remme.
The next stage will start in Colmar and ended in Carspach. All the cyclists will cover the distance of 146 kilometres.
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