Having mostly been working as a lead-out man, Leigh Howard got a rare chance to sprint in the Tour du Poitou-Charentes. The Australian finished 10th which was an important confidence booster.

Leigh Howard has finished tenth on stage one of the Tour of Poitou Charentes, boosting the 24-year-old’s confidence as he returns to form.

Howard was well positioned in the final kilometer but suffered when he found himself at the front with over 400meters left to ride. Mark Cavendish (OPQ) won the stage.

“The objective was to try and get Leigh Howard up for a good result,” sport director David McPartland explained.

“We are always hoping to win but being realistic about it we were just trying to get him a good result. 

“If he had finished in the top five it would have been a like win for us because he is coming back from a period where he hasn’t been sprinting as well as he used to.

“But he is finding his way back so we wanted to give him the full support of the team and he is definitely heading in the right direction.”

The day’s main four-rider breakaway didn’t pose any serious threat on the race with the sprinter’s teams keeping them at bay.

“The roads were really narrow the whole day and even though Omega kept the gap down all day there was still the constant stress of being on narrow roads,” McPartland said.

“The pace ramped up really quickly once we came onto the finish circuit with 35km to go and the break was caught as teams started positioning for the sprint.

“We were affected a little bit by a couple of crashes, (Michael) Hepburn, (Damien) Howson and (Jens) Mouris all getting caught behind crashes which hindered their ability to assist in the final.

“(Michael) Albasini, (Svein) Tuft and Luke Durbridge took the bulk of the workload in the last 10km. 

“Svein dropped Leigh off amongst the Omega train and from that point on he had to fight for himself which we expected with our general classification ambitions. 

“After the last corner with 800m to go Leigh was in between the Omega-quickstep train but with 400m to go found himself on the front which wasn’t ideal.

“It was too far out so he tried to back off and get amongst the sprinters coming through but that time he spent in the wind was enough to hurt him and the best he could managed was tenth.”