Andrew Talansky took his first stage win in his argyle career, while also taking over the GC lead at the Tour de l’Ain. Director Sportif Johnny Weltz sent this report.
Today was the Queen stage, a bumpy road from the beginning and high speed!
We planned a hard stage to mix up the GC and our riders were well presented in the moves. 50km into the stage after a lot of moves a group of 11 riders went away. A very strong group they gained up to two minutes. We had Fabian Wegmann in it.
The Movistar team had other plans chasing hard and the front group split up over the cat 1 climb.
With 25 km to go Fabian was in there when it came down to six riders front group, but in the end they all got caught before the last climb to the finish. a 5km long climb.
With 5km to go three riders attacked out of the front and Andrew was there. Rhey stayed away and it came to a sprint with the three; Andrew was the strongest taking the stage and leader’s jersey.
Our guys did a solid job today and it worked out perfect to the very end. Martijn Maaskant is back to his old self and climbed very well!
“It was a hard stage, it took 65km for the break to go so guys were already pretty tired by then,” said Talanksy. “The team took great care of me, kept me up front in the run in to the final climb, then I was able to finish it off.”
“I think we have a strong team here and we will do all we can to win the overall tomorrow.”
“I’m feeling good for the Vuelta, things are coming together and I’m looking forward to it!”
More photos from the Tour de l’Ain:
