Romain Feillu wins second stage, Egidijus Juodvalkis takes overall lead at
2011 Tour de Picardie
Vacansoleil-DCM team’s Romain Feillu showed tremendous performance in the second stage of 2011 Tour de Picardie from Villers-Saint-Paul to Chateau-Thierry on Saturday, May 14, 2011.
The 27-year-old Frenchman took a total of 3 hours, 45 minutes and 26 seconds to cover the distance of 166.5 kilometres and win the second stage.
Romain easily defeated Europcar team's Said Haddou in the final sprint, which put the country-mate in the second place. Mathieu Drujon of the Big Mat-Auber team also showed his good performance and managed to claim the third spot.
It was Romain's fifth win of the season, after winning the third stage of Tour Mediterraneen and won Tour du Finistere. He was in second place in Grand Prix de Denain.
This stage was not easy for the riders because there were three sprints and three mountains in the stage.
In the beginning of the race, the group of 34 cyclists had made small gap over peloton but all of them come back together in fast hour of racing.
The group of three riders made first break-away in the race included Jean Lou Paiani of the Sojasun-Sauer team, Nicolas Bazin of the BigMat-Auber 93 team and Johan Le Bon of the Bretagne Schuller team.
All French cyclists worked together to build a maximum advantage of 5 minutes over the peloton. But in the first sprint, Nicolas Bazin took points ahead of Jean Lou Paiani and Johan Le Bon.
Landbouwkrediet team sustained to break-away at three cyclists in orders to protect the lead of Egidijus Juodvalkis.
In the last 25 kilometres, trio only had 40 seconds in hand and the peloton maintained its speed and worked hard to bringing them back into the field.
In the final sprint, Said Haddou tried to take a lead, but Romain Feillu maintained his speed and with the help of his team-mate he crossed the finish-line without any difficulty.
Egidijus Juodvalkis took a lead in the overall standing with a timing of 7 hours and 28 minute and 5 seconds. The stage winner, Romain Feillu, was the runner-up as he was one second behind Egidijus. Kenny De Haes finished third with the difference of five
seconds.
While Jean-Lou Paiani of the Saur-Sojasun captured the Green Jersey and Johan Le Bon won the KOM and most aggressive rider award.
The next stage starts in Charly-sur-Marne and end in Péronne. All the riders will cover a distance of 189.5km.
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