Svein Tuft finished safely in the bunch to secure his second place in the Tour du Poitou-Charentes. All day he had been looking for a chance to attack race leader Sylvain Chavanel but a great IAM performance made it impossible to put the race leader under pressure.

Eleven-time Canadian champion Svein Tuft has secured second overall at the Tour du Poitou Charentes, finishing within the bunch sprint on the last day of racing.

Tuft went into the fifth and final stage 47seconds behind leader Sylvain Chavanel (IAM),courtesy of the previous afternoon’s individual time trial, and the situation remained the same at the Tour’s close.

Sport director David McPartland conceded that the strength of the IAM Cycling team riding in support of Chavanel made it near impossible to challenge for the overall victory.

“Realistically, it really wasn’t going to happen,” McPartland said of Tuft’s chances of knocking Chavanel off the top step of the podium on the final stage.

“We were attentive the whole time ready to take our chances, but the race situation never really gave us an opportunity.

“In the end our priority was to finish well and safely for second.”

Earlier in the day a group of four riders went away and another two bridged across to make a main break of six riders on the final stage.

IAM Cycling rode at three to three and a half minutes most of the day and then slowly reeled the break in towards the finish circuit.

The gap was at a minute when the race hit the challenging final circuit and from that point on it was really aggressive as riders worked to take the stage win. Jesus Herrada (MOV) won the stage in a sprint finish.

Overall, McPartland said the team had ridden to their best potential and in a secondary positive had put in some good preparation work for additional end of season goals.

“We are really happy with Svein’s overall result,” McPartland said.

“I think the best man won in Chavanel but we had the second best guy on the road and we came away with a podium in the overall which is fantastic.

“One of the other objectives we identified at the start of the week was preparation for the team time trial worlds. 

“We had five members of the current squad up for selection for the world championships so it was a priority to give them a really solid hit out and we certainly ticked that box this week.”