Awesome Europcar Tactics
Europcar put two men on the front at about 40km to go to reduce the break’s lead. At about the 33km mark with their two guys still on the front, they had 3 riders take a flyer from the pack. The back rider of these 3 (and the two on the front) sat up as they left the pack (this discourages chases and helps the front two establish a gap). The other two were then free to chase and eventually they caught the last remaining rider from the breakaway (Simon Clark). This put them in a position of two against one. Unfortunately they got caught 5km from the finish, but what a great series of maneuvers to get themselves into the break for the final 30km.
I have tried to find video of this, but no luck sorry…
Big mountain top finish tonight, so will look a little closer at climbing power outputs and training.
Video highlights and live coverage links
