June 7/09 21:26 pm - UCI U23 Nations Cup-Ville de Saguenay Stage 5

Posted by Editoress on 06/7/09
 

The French national team defended their leader's yellow jersey successfully in the stage and Johan LeBon won the second edition of the UCI Nations Cup-Ville de Saguenay U23. The 140 kilometre last stage was won by Jarlison Pantano of Colombia.

An break of ten took off early, and included three Canadians (David Boily, Keir Plaice and Joël Dion-Poitras) and one American (Guy East). However three of the break riders crashed in a slippery corner and another one punctured, leaving a smaller group at the front that did not work together well and were caught halfway into the stage.

Lebon's leader's jersey was in jeopardy soon after, when a break of three, including sixth-place overall Colombian Darwin Atapuma, managed to gain over two minutes on the Yellow Jersey group. Supported by his team, LeBon never panicked and was able to hold on to his lead.

"We were confident that we could bring the gap down to at least one minute, especially as we had five guys left in the pack still riding well. I am extremely happy to win this really hard race" said a very happy LeBon after the stage.

At the finish, the three escapees crossed the line with a handful of seconds on the field.  Colombian Jarlison Pantano won ahead of his teammate Atapuma and Russian Andrey Klyuev.  American Jacob Keough came in fourth at seven seconds, with the top Canadian Ryan Anderson, who finished tent h, in the same time.

LeBon took the final general classification by 16 seconds over German Nico Keinath. Canadian Ryan Anderson finished eighth at 2:04, and American Bjorn Selander ended 11th at 2:17.

Anderson was pleased with his race "I did all I could to shake up the GC yesterday, I had good legs all week and I had a very good ITT in particular. So, I am happy with my results."

The UCI Nations Cup-Ville de Saguenay is the fifth of six races which make up the UCI Nations Cup for the world's best riders aged 19 to 22 years old. It is the only event of this series to be held outside Europe. It was held over five stages from June 4th to 7th 2009.

Results to come