Wout Poels begins perfect day for Vacansoleil by taking Tour de l’Ain stage 2011 – Cycling Update
Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling team’s Wout Poels showed a tremendous performance in the third stage of Tour de l’Ain-La route du progress 2011 on Friday, August 12.
The stage was a 129-kilometer run that started in Nantua and finished in Lelex. The 23-year-old Dutch professional cyclists took the total of 3 hours, 16 minutes and 4 seconds to cover the distance of the stage.
Recently, Poels showed an excellent effort and took the third place in Tour Mediterraneen and also grabbed fourth place in Vuelta a Murcia. He also secured the fourth spot in Tour de Pologne.
Pierre Rolland of the Europcar team was runner-up with same timing of Poels and David Moncoutie of Cofidis, Le Credit En Ligne finished third with the difference of 2 seconds.
His team-mate Johnny Hoogerland increased his pace and managed to launch an attack and was quickly joined by the group of 15 cyclists.
With 20 kilometres to go, the three cyclists made their lead in the first sprint including, Alexandr Shushemoin (Pro Team Astana), Axel Domont (France Espoir Team) and Guillaume Faucon (Big Mat - Auber 93). All of them worked well together but Shushemoin
took the points and the first sprint.
The cyclists continued the stage in climbs while Johnny Hoogerland launched an attack with Robinson Eduardo and Hubert Dupont but Hoogerland increased the pace and took points in the first climb and third climb but failed to maintain his lead in the fourth
climb as Rein Taaramae took a lead. However, the overall title of King of Mountain was given to Hoogerland at the end of the stage.
Wout Poels took the overall standing with the timing of 10 hours, 20 minutes and 13 seconds while Pierre Rolland was in second spot with 22 seconds behind Poels.
David Moncoutie of Cofidis, Le Credit En Ligne was in third place with the difference of 28 seconds ahead of Jean-Christophe and Jerome Coppel.
France Espoir team’s Warren Barguil took the Best Young standing ahead of Romain Bardet and Emilien Viennet.
The final stage will start in Belley and end in Le Grand Colombier. All the cyclists will cover the distance of 134.8 kilometres.
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