In his first race back after the Tour de France, Daniel Teklehaimanot was again the protagonist as he put in a late attack at the opening Tour du Poitou Charentes stage which resulted in a 7th place finish.

The stage may have been won by Arnaud Gerard (Bretagne-Seche) with Maxime Daniel (AG2R La Mondiale) 2nd and Sep Vanmarcke (Lotto-Jumbo) 3rd but it was Teklehaimanot who initiated the defining move of the day. After the early escape was caught, Teklehaimanot took it upon himself to light up the racing with just over 15km to go. The Eritrean star put in a solo attack and quickly got 100m on the charging peloton.

As the gap moved from 10 seconds to 20 seconds for Teklehaimanot, a number of counter attacks followed from the peloton that eventually saw 11 riders coming across to Teklehaimanot with around 8km to go. It was at this point that young Nic Dougall also returned to the peloton after an untimely puncture.

The peloton were not able to bring back the powerful move up ahead and the 12 riders arrived just 11 seconds before the peloton with Teklehaimanot securing 7th position.

“Daniel was a surprise today when he attacked with 15km to go and was able to open up a nice gap. Then a group crossed over to him and it was a shame nobody from our team was with them as it was a mistake to not take advantage of the situation. We can still be happy with how things worked out,” sports director Michel Cornelisse  said.