"After I saw Katusha was pulling so hard, I knew it was better to be in the peloton than in the breakaway, because I knew it would be a sprint."
Those were the words of Astana's Lieuwe Westra after stage fifteen at the Tour de France.
Westra escaped into a large breakaway at the beginning of the day and rode through the first categorized climb in a group of 27 riders that could not gain more than one minute advantage on the main peloton - Sunday's profile was mostly flat, and certain to end in a sprint, but teams with no riders in Westra's group were determined to put their own fast riders at the front, and so the breakaway was a steady 40-45 seconds ahead of the peloton for alost one hour.
Westra finished 48 seconds behind stage winner André Greipel of Germany. Teammate Vincenzo Nibali finished in the same time as Greipel, and remains 8th overall in General Classification with six stages still to race.
20.05: GP Mazda SCHELKENS |
20.05: Paris - Troyes |
20.05: Ronde van Limburg |
12.05 - 21.05: Tour d'Algérie |
22.05: GP de la Ville d'Annaba |
20.05 - 24.05: Cycling Tour of Albania |
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Iúri JORGE 33 years | today |
Francesca PISCIALI 26 years | today |
Zhen TIAN 27 years | today |
Emir UZUN 22 years | today |
Yevgeniy GIDICH 28 years | today |
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