Colombian Esteban Chaves has claimed 13th position overall, moving up two positions following the final stage of the Volta Ciclista a Catalunya.
Chaves finished in the front group behind Alejandro Valverde (MOV) who took out the stage in Barcelona, his third for the Tour, whilst Richie Porte also finished alongside the pair to secure the overall victory.
“We have finished with a respectable general classification result,” sport directorDave McPartland said.
“Results wise on paper, it wasn’t quite what we expected but in reality a lot of the guys have come back from a break or being sick, Esteban included, so they have rallied around him as best they could.
“The race went against us a lot of the time and we didn’t have a lot of luck but we have got a good solid week of racing in with a decent result.”
The final stage stayed together for the first 40km before a group of three riders formed the first breakaway on the journey towards the finishing circuits.
The gap from David Arroyo (Caja Rural - Seguros RGA), Marek Rutkiewicz (CCC Sprandi Polkowice) and Fernando Pedraza (Team Colombia) hovered around the two-minute mark for much of the race as the Movistar Team took responsibility at the front of the peloton.
“Today we had a main objective of looking after the Chaves in the final but also to keep an eye out for a good move if it looked like one would survive to the finish,” McPartland said.
“But Movistar were committed to keeping it under control for the whole day so we put all of our efforts in to the finale on the finishing laps.”
With 12kilometres and two laps of the local finishing circuit remaining, the race was back together and immediately met with a solo attack from Dan Martin (Cannondale Garmin).
His first move didn’t last but the pressure of the chase, led by Etixx-Quickstep, reduced the peloton to around 40 riders on the penultimate climb.
The action calmed momentarily before Chaves tried briefly to get off the front ahead of a secondary solo attack from Martin which lasted until the final 500m before a remaining select group of 31riders contested for final stage honours.
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