After wining the first trophy of the Challenge Mallorca, André Greipel came back today to take the win in the last race, beating Nacer Bouhanni and Dylan Page in the sprint.
Three Spaniards formed the break of the day: Imanol Estevez, Lluís Mas and Omar Fraile. They had a maximal advantage of six minutes. Just like Thursday Frederik Frison did lots of work at the head of the bunch. In the finale there was one climb, by that time two minutes lead were left. There were attacks uphill, but André Greipel didn’t get into any trouble. A bunch sprint in the streets of Palma was unavoidable. Cofidis set up a sprint train for Nacer Bouhanni, but the Lotto Soudal train was faster.”
Bart Leysen, sports director Lotto Soudal: “Today the race was even more perfect than Thursday, because the victory was even more convincing. Soon, three riders got ahead that we could control easily. Just like Thursday Frederik Frison did most of the chasing. He prepared himself well in the winter, he immediately performed well in his first race.”
“Before entering the last thirty kilometres, where there lay a climb on the course, we let the lead drop to two minutes. Tiesj Benoot and Tim Wellens then took over from Frederik and reacted to the attacks of among other Michal Kwiatkowski and Zdenek Stybar. Cofidis set up a train as well today, but ours was faster.”
“The team worked well together and that makes me happy. Our goal was to win a stage with André and we could immediately achieve that the first day. Also today was a success. We also had riders in our team for the two tougher races. Also those days we left our mark and set some nice results. Tiesj got fourth Friday and third yesterday; Tim was tenth yesterday. It’s could to see that our young riders keep developing and take the initiative themselves now. After today’s race the riders did an extra sixty kilometres. Tomorrow they can rest and then we will have three more days of training on the island.”
Ron is the chief cook and bottlewasher at Bike World News, doing everything from website design to bike reviews.
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Commencal Absolut 26″ Dirt Jump/Pump Track bike
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