Schifflange, 6th of June – 2014
Today’s 157.4 kilometer long second stage of Tour de Luxembourg from Rosport to Schifflange was dominated by a breakaway consisting of Jacques Janse van Rensburg (RSA/MTN-Qhubeka), Boris Dron (B/Wallonie-Bruxelles), Juan Esteban Arango (COL/Colombia) and Ilnur Zakarin (RUS/Rusvelo).
In the field, Trek Factory Cycling wore the responsibility of reducing the lead but with 8 kilometers to go, the front group still had a gap of 40 seconds. But the escapees were swept up before entering the one kilometer long uphill finish. Tinkoff-Saxo and Lotto-Belisol were the most dominant teams in the front of the pack trying to position their sprinters perfectly before the ramp to the finish line.
And in the uphill sprint, Tinkoff-Saxo’s Matti Breschel was merciless taking the stage win.
“The boys executed our plan to utter perfection. Trek took control of the pace-making in the first part of the stage as the leading team and we went to the front rolling under the ten kilometer kite to sweep up the escapees and put Michael (Mørkøv) and Matti in a favorable position. Matti showed what he’s capable of when he reaches peak shape and he was simply the strongest of all today. At the same time, Mørkøv finished 5th and is now 2nd overall. That means we’re also fighting the overall result so of course we’ll celebrate the stage win but there’s another day tomorrow and we have to fight to get the lead,” said DS, Fabrizio Guidi.
Jean-Pierre Drucker (Wanty) now leads overall.
