Saur-Sojasun’s Anthony Delaplace takes La Poly Normande 2011 - Cycling News
Saur-Sojasun team’s Anthony Delaplace showed his good effort in the La Poly Normande 2011 on Sunday, July 31. The race started in Avranches and ended in Saint-Martin de Landelles.
The 21-year-old French cyclists dream was to win the Polynormande. Previously, Anthony won the junior road race of Champion de France in 2007. He also grabbed sixth spot in the Grand Prix of Portugal and also took the stage of Tour de l’Avenir.
After winning the stage, Delaplace told the media, “Only six years ago I won this race in the U17 category, time goes fast, like today, I won solo, this is the only way for me to win. I’m a very bad sprinter. I came out of the Tour in good condition.”
Ag2r-La Mondiale team’s Mikael Cherel was also in good form and only three kilometres away from St-Martin-de –Landelles and with few kilometres to go Delaplace and Cherel formed the group of 16 breakaway riders including, Jeremy Roy, Arnaud Gerard (FDJ),
Yoann Bagot, Kevin Reza, Thomas Degand, Sylvain Georges, Florian Vachon and Renaud Dion.
After the half-way mark, the peloton caught the rider but after 40 kilometres, five cyclists including, Delaplace, Cherel, Gerard, Vachon and El Fares managed to gain a lead and got away.
With 20 kilometres remaining, Delaplace launched an attack and crossed the finish line ahead of the other cyclists. He took the total of 3 hours, 43 minutes and 36 seconds to cover the distance of 157 kilometres.
He further said, “I paid attention to what I ate this week because I wanted to do well today. I was so motivated that I wanted to attack too early. It’s a dream come true for me to win the Polynormande.”
Julien El Fares of Cofidis was runner-up with 1 minute and 44 seconds behind Sprinter while Arnaud Gérard of FDJ was in third place.
Mikael Cherel (Ag2r-La Mondiale) tried his best to take a lead but failed and grabbed fifth place with the difference of 1 minute and 48 second ahead of Tony Gallopin and Julien Simon.
Tags: