A front group dominated the first part of today’s 190 kilometer long and hilly queen stage of Circuit Sarthe from Angers to Pre-en-Pail in France but the finale loop shattered the front group and eventually, the peloton exploded into bits and pieces when finally catching the escapees.

At first, four riders from various teams took off from the peloton and worked up a good gap to spend some time in the sun before the finale. With ten kilometers to go of the demanding stage, the escapees’ lead was narrowed down to merely 30 seconds and then the attacks started flying from the bunch.

A quintet bridged across to the front group and now rushed towards the finish line with the herd of sprinters on their tail and with race leader, Adriano Malori (Movistar) as a locomotive. In the final kilometer, the field exploded and on the finish line, Tinkoff-Saxo Italian, Manuele Boaro took the stage win.

CULT Energy Pro Cycling DS Luke Roberts says:

“We were expecting a hard finale and we got what we expected. The boys did a solid job bringing Rasmus Guldhammer to the front of the bunch and he and Christian Mager both finished in the first group. Unfortunately, Rasmus didn’t make it into the top-10 as hoped due to the fact that his chain was stuck. Rasmus is in very good shape and I’m sure that he would have been in the top-5 if he hadn’t been struck by bad luck.  I reckon that tomorrow’s stage will be one for the sprinters but we will try our best to get in the breakaway and Russell will be there if the stage comes to a bunch sprint conclusion.”