Cervélo - Armitstead wins 2nd consecutive stage at Tour De l'Ardèche
10.9.2010
Lizzie Armitstead (GBR) made it two in a row today with another sprint finish win at the fourth stage of the Tour De l’Ardéche. The 129 km stage from St. Sauveur de Montagut to Cruas also had a challenging mountain component as well.
“It was a very hard course today and our best rider Sharon Laws (GBR) had some problems with her descents. That cost her a lot of power coming back every time. Then she couldn’t drop Amelie Rivat (FRA), finally doing so on the second climb,” said Egon van Kessel, sports director. “She then had a small gap but it quickly closed again. At the end there were seven riders in the front with three of ours: Lizzie Armitstead who won the race in the sprint, Carla Ryan (AUS) and Sharon. We won the stage again, but we are still one second behind in the GC with two days to go. This will not be easy but we will continue to do our best. The whole team performed very well today, Claudia Haüsler (GER), Lieselot Decroix (BEL) and especially Patricia Schwager (SUI). Patricia did a really good job in the first mountain and tried to mount an offensive, but as I mentioned earlier it didn’t work because of the difficult descents.”
“In the final 5 km today there was seven of us including Carla, Sharon and myself,” explained Lizzie Armitstead. “Carla worked hard for the last 5 km at the front while Sharon watched the leaders allowing me to get into a good position for the sprint. Grace Verbeke (BEL) started the sprint and I won it. The team was outstanding today and worked very hard and I really thank them.”
Geert Broekhuizen - Public Relations
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