Russell Downing takes Wallonie for Team Sky
After a disappointing Tour de France for the newly founded British-based Team Sky, an overall victory at the five-day Belgian stage race, the Tour de Wallonie, at the hands of Sky rider Russell Downing, has boosted the young team’s spirit and the hopes of team principle Dave Brailsford. The British team was formed at the beginning of the 2010 season with the goal of producing the first ever British Tour de France winner ‘by 2015.'
Downing took his victory in the final stage of the Tour de Wallonie with a long sprint to the finish line in Lontzen. His teammates set him up with a perfect lead-out and managed to speed past Stefan Van Dijk for the win. Tony Gallopin of team Cofidis was 3rd in the stage and Wouter Weylandt of team Quick Step finished 4th.
The previous overall leader Marco Marcato had the rug pulled out from under him when Downing surprisingly leapt from fourth-place overall to first, just two seconds ahead of Marcato and three-seconds ahead of Laurent Mangel, who took the fourth stage win, as well as the overall lead on Tuesday.
In March, the Team Sky rider took a stage victory at the Criterium International, and netted his second stage victory of the season and his first overall victory on Wednesday, ruining the Frenchman Mangel’s plans to win the Tour. Mangel won his third stage of the season when he out-sprinted Marcato in the fourth stage breakaway in Villiers-le-Bouillet. Mangel took the overall lead from Kristof Goddaert, and went on to lose it to Downing the next day.
The small, sharp climbs of the 168km fourth stage made for frequent attacks and left the peloton in pieces until it reformed 40km from the finish line and shattered again with 20km to go, setting up Mangel for the sprint.
Downing took over the next day with a surge late in the stage. With only two other Team Sky riders to support him, his jump from fifth to first ahead of van Dijk, Mangel, Goddaert and Marcato came as a total surprise. The 31 year-old rider finished with just a two second gap.
"It's a super result and we couldn't have asked for any more," said Team Sky's sports director Steven de Jongh. "We're absolutely delighted with the way things turned out with Russell. He trained really hard in the weeks leading up to the race and this is his reward. Hopefully now he will go from strength to strength in the weeks to come."
Team Sky eyes Neil Stephens
The Australian cycling sports director Neil Stephens has been in talks with Team Sky after his deal with team Astana fell through with the departure of Alberto Contador.
The second rest day of the Tour de France has long been the unofficial kick-off of the cycling trade, and several leading contenders had announced new deals before the Tour had even finished. The Spanish Tour de France champion had been planning to stay with Astana, so the suggestion was that Stephens would be joining him there after a long history of close ties with Spanish teams and riders.
Stephens is the director of team Caisse d’Epargne, but this team will not be continuing with a team in the next cycling season. With the three-time Tour winner in the market for a new team of his own, and his split with Astana officially announced, Stephens seems poised to begin a relationship with Team Sky, already actively assembling its 2011 roster after learning some harsh lessons in its debut Grand Tour.
"The team is finishing up this year," said Stephens to Cyclingnews. "It's been a fantastic experience in the last three, but at this stage there's no ongoing sponsor, so I've looked at it from my side of things, and obviously I've got a family to support so I'm looking at different options in the sport. Astana said to Alberto that if he stayed, I'd be involved.”
Tags: