Yauheni Hutarovich takes second stage as Appollonio wraps up overall lead in Charentes 2011
FDJ team’s Yauheni Hutarovich showed a good effort and took his second stage victory in a week after winning the second stage of Tour du Poitou Charentes 2011 on Wednesday, August 24. David Appollonio retained his overall leader’s yellow jersey.
The race started in Cognac and ended in Bressuire. The 27-year-old Belarusian bicycle racer took the total of 4 hours, 9 minutes and 25 seconds to cover the distance of 175.2 kilometres.
After winning the stage, Hutarovich told the media, "The final was not easy. It was like a slide with a roller coaster. We were riding over 70kph, the form is coming back slowly and I hope to be on top for the World Championships."
In the beginning of the stage, Rudger Selig of Leopard Trek launched the first attack but he was not allowed to gain a huge gap. The two cyclists including, Florent Mallégol (Brittany Schuller) and Romain Delalot (Cofidis) were next to go. Arkimedes Arguelyes
Rodriges of Katusha increased his pace and managed to bridge across.
Delalot managed to take points in the first sprint and then trio working well together and took advantage of five minutes and Sky team picking up the pace to save David’s lead.
Mallegol took the second intermediate sprint while Kelderman took the third. The Dutch cyclists took the overall mountains sprint to wear polka dot jersey standing. With 25 kilometres to go, Europcar team managed to pull out while peloton was split in crash.
Sky team managed to close the gap and finally rejoined in the final kilometres. Appollonio face another crash after 1 kilometres and Hutarovich took the stage victory.
Team Sky's directeur Nicolas Portal on teamsky.com, "It was a good day for the team. Everybody was strong and confident but it was just bad luck at the end, the important thing is that everyone is okay."
Sky Procycling team’s Appollonio took the overall standing with the timing of 8 hours, 28 minutes and 40 seconds. Yauheni Hutarovich was in second spot with 3 seconds and Rojas Gil finished third with 4 seconds down to Italian.
The next stage will run in Bressuire and finished in Chatellerault. All the cyclists will cover the distance of 104.8 kilometres.
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