Romain Feillu wins final stage, Linus Gerdemann takes overall lead in Skoda-Tour de Luxembourg 2011
Vacansoleil-DCM team’s Romain Feillu won the fourth and final stage of Skoda Tour de Luxembourg 2011 on Sunday, June 5. German cyclist, Linus Gerdemann, took an overall leader’s jersey.
The race started in Mersch and ended at Luxembourg. The 27-year-old Romain took a total of 3 hours, 42 minutes and 6 seconds to cover a distance of 152.1 kilometres.
Recently, Feillu won Tour du Finistere and clinched the second, third and fourth stage of Tour Mediterraneen. He also won the fifth stage of Circuit de Lorraine.
Frank Schleck of Leopard Trek was runner-up with the same timing of Romain. Pieter Van Speybroeck of Topsport Vlaanderen – Mercator finished third and Tony Gallopin came in fourth place.
After finishing the stage, Schleck said, “I’m not really disappointed with my race, because the aim was to help Linus Gerdemann win, my main objectives in the weeks to come are obviously the Tour de Suisse and the Tour de France.”
With few kilometres to go, a group of four riders, including Kurt Asle Arvesen of Sky, Antonio Piedra of Andalucia-Caja Granada, Arkimedes Arguelles of Katusha and Anthony Delaplace of Saur-Sojasun.
All of them gained an advantage of 3 minutes and 20 seconds over the peloton, but after few kilometres, the two riders, Kurt Asle and Anthony Delaplace, pulled away. All of them joined together again and got two minutes in the final 7.7 kilometres.
Gerdemann told the media, “The circuit in the city was tricky. It was up and down the entire time, the climb before the finish line was tough, and it made for a nervous finale.”
In the final circuit, the four riders were caught by the peloton. Laurent Mangel tried his best to take the lead from Leopard trek riders, but he failed and grabbed 57th place with 8 minutes behind Romain.
Frank Schleck attacked and maintained his speed, but he was caught by the Frenchman and Feillu crossed the finish-line ahead of other cyclists.
Linus Gerdemann took a lead in final general classification with the timing of 18 hours, 35 minutes and 32 seconds. Alexandre Geniez was runner-up with 2 seconds behind Linus.
Tony Gallopin (Cofidis, Le Credit En Ligne) was in third place with a difference of 3 seconds.
Davide Appollonio won the points classification with 42 points ahead of Denis and Romain. Christian Poos won the title of Mountain classification ahead of Johannes Fröhlinger.
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