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Last Updated: May 17th, 2008 - 21:12:44 |
Nicolas Roche took his second international pro victory on yesterday’s opening stage of the Internacional Paredes Rota dos Móveis in Portugal, clipping away in the closing kilometres and holding off a 49-man bunch to the line in Padron.
The Crédit Agricole rider has been showing strong form of late. He reached the finish just ahead of team-mate Jeremy Hunt (Crédit Agricole) and Francisco Jose Pacheco Torres (Barbot – Siper), and took the first race leader’s jersey.
Thanks to the time bonuses, Roche has a four second lead over Hunt and a further two seconds on Torres heading into today’s second stage, a 128 kilometre race from Pontevedra to Paredes.
“I attacked with three kilometre to go,” Roche said this morning. “One of the Acqua Sapone guys attacked, I caught him just at the beginning of the descent and then we rode together until about 500 metres to go. I attacked him there and the peloton finished just behind me.
“It’s my second international win. It felt great, it has been a while coming. I had a good second place on Sunday in a bunch sprint, I’m pretty happy.”
Roche will aim to keep the yellow jersey but knows that the course profile will make that less than certain. “It is a mountainous race. There were three hard climbs yesterday, there are three or four today. Basically there are three or four climbs every day. There’s a mountain-top finish tomorrow and a mountain-top finish on the last day as well. So it will be a tough one but the goal is to try to defend it.”
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Internacional Paredes Rota dos Móveis - 2.1
Portugal, May 15-18, 2008
Stage 1 - May 15: Santiago de Compostela – Padron:
1, Nicolas Roche (Crédit Agricole ) 156.9 kilometres in 3 hours 40 mins 51 secs (42.626 km/h)
2, Jeremy Hunt (Crédit Agricole)
3, Francisco Jose Pacheco Torres (Barbot – Siper)
4, Mikhaylo Khalilov (Ceramica Flaminia Bossini Doce)
5, Filipe Cardoso (Liberty Seguros)
6, Giovanni Bernaudeau (Bouygues Telecom) all same time
General classification after stage 1:
1, Nicolas Roche (Crédit Agricole) 3 hours 40 mins 41 secs
2, Jeremy Hunt (Crédit Agricole) at 4 secs
3, Francisco Jose Pacheco Torres (Barbot – Siper) at 6 secs
4, Constantino Zaballa (LA MSS) at 8 secs
5, Rui Costa (Benfica) at 9 secs
6, Mikhaylo Khalilov (Ceramica Flaminia Bossini Doce) at 10 secs
Points classification
1, Nicolas Roche (Crédit Agricole) 25 pts
2, Jeremy Hunt (Crédit Agricole) 20
3, Francisco Jose Pacheco Torres (Barbot – Siper) 16
Mountains:
1, Constantino Zaballa (LA MSS) 13 pts
2, Nelson Vitorino (Palmeiras Resort – Tavira) 10
3, Ricardo Mestre (Palmeiras Resort – Tavira) 7
Teams classification
1, Credit Agricole, 11 hours 2 mins 33 secs
2, La MSS
3, Liberty Seguros, both same time
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