Prudential Prutour 1999
31-May-1999
| Stage three: Winchester-Bristol <Main Page > <Previous Stage> <Next Stage> A remarkable day of racing saw Rabobank and Credit Agricole join forces and then fall out, and ended with US Postal, the third biggest team in the race, taking the stage and the overall honours. US Postal's first-year professional, Benoit Joachim of Luxembourg, was presented with the red jersey after taking the stage by 14 seconds with a late, lone break. The profile of the day's stage - 70 miles of mainly flat roads before the serious climbing started at Cheddar Gorge - indicated a steady start. Only 18 miles or so were covered in the first hour, but as the race crossed from Hampshire to Wiltshire the speed increased dramatically. The bunch split and a group of more than 30 riders went clear. George Hincapie (US Postal), lying second overall, was stuck in the peloton; Rabobank and Credit Agricole realised that here was a chance to get rid of a serious rival and joined forces to drive the break into a lead of 1-35. Over switchback roads the leaders continued to gain ground while behind them Hincapie and his team-mates did their best to limit their losses. The unity between Credit Agricole and Rabobank was shattered at Bratton, where red jersey Van Bon went for a hot-spot sprint and grabbed the three bonus seconds that went with it. The Credit Agricole riders weren't happy that he should go bonus chasing instead of working with his breakaway partners. Words were exchanged, the break lost momentum and the gap between break and bunch diminished rapidly. The race came together again at 65 miles, just before it entered Shepton Mallet where hundreds of excited schoolchildren provided a wall of sound in the main street. Ahead lay Wells, and the last hotspot, which was taken by Bjornar Vestol (Acceptcard) with a lone attack. He was joined by 11 more riders in what was the key move of the stage - and possibly a decisive point in the whole race. Escapees included Joachim, who had been a non-working member of the earlier break, Mark McKay and Joe Bayfield of Harrods-Sixt, Charlie Wegelius (GB), David McKenzie (Linda McCartney) and Marc Wauters (Rabobank). Soon they were on the first real climb of this year's race, Cheddar Gorge, which looked magnificent crammed with spectators enjoying the all-out action in the warm sunshine. One-by-one the weaker riders dropped back as Joachim and Vestol kept the tempo high on the front of the string as it swung through the twists and turns of the deep gorge. By the summit only Joachim and Vestol were left at the head of the race as they headed for the Bristol finish 22 miles away. Vestol, who had instigated the original break, started to weaken and was dropped on second-category Limeburn Hill, leaving Joachim as lone leader with 10 miles to go. With chase groups reforming behind him, Joachim looked set to be caught. After all, he is only 23 and a first-year professional whose biggest win to date was a stage in the 1998 Tour de l’Avenir. But somehow he held on, even though the stage contained one last nasty surprise - a steep, windswept climb to the finish line on Durdham Down. The chasers now had Joachim in sight, but he held on to cross the line, punching the air in a display of pure delight at scoring his first win as a pro. Fourteen seconds later McKenzie took the sprint for second from Wauters. When the calculations had been done, Wauters was second overall, 13 seconds down on Joachim, while McKenzie was third at 42 seconds. The race had splintered apart, with the previous day's heroes, Boardman, Van Bon and Hincapie crossing the line 3-56 down in a seven-man group that also contained Chris Newton (Linda McCartney) and Wong Kam Po of China. 1. Benoit Joachim (Luxembourg) US Postal Service 106 miles in 4-16-36 |