October 12/07 10:58 am - Vuelta a Chihuahua: Lacombe wins Stage 5

Posted by Editoress on 10/12/07
 

Vuelta a Chihuahua Mexico

Report courtesy Symmetrics Fuelled By Farmpure

A Canadian won the fifth stage of the Vuelta A Chihuahua today - Keven Lacombe. In the mad dash to the finish Symmetrics Fuelled By Farmpure's Andrew Pinfold was 4th, with top GC rider-cum-sprinter Christian Meier in 10th. Kelly Benefits took control with about 20Km to go and did a strong job of riding back the day-long break and Keven Lacombe took the win. Meier remains in 3rd overall and first in the U23 classification. There are still 4 riders who remain on the same time on overall GC.

The Day's Events

The stage started very aggressive, with numerous attacks from the gun. The terrain out of Creel was hill, and right away there were riders being dropped, creating large splits in the main group. The S-team was always in the front splits. Will Routley made another savvy move to form the first break, however it was short-lived. The next move contained riders from Canels, Slipstream, Relax, Agritubel, Tecos, Arenas and Fuerte Ventura. The Slipstream rider was Timmy Duggan who was only 15 seconds down on GC - meaning he quickly became GC rider on the road.

The Spanish teams were not happy at all that a GC rider like Duggan was up the road: the Saunier and Relax teams set tempo in the main field. After 15-20km the race radio said that both Santi Perez and Duggan were coming back to the main field. There were rumurs that break was riding Duggan off the back. With him gone, the break rolled buut never got more than 4 minutes.

Up front the Fuerte Ventura rider attacked his remaining break companions really early and pretty much rode the break solo. It was an impressive effort from Polamares from Fuerte.

Relax and Saunier rode tempo in the main field all day. There was nervous tension as everyone was anticipating an aggressive final climb with 25km followed by 18 km of descending. But again the profile was deceptive. The final climb was really a non-climb. It was big ring highway grade on a wide 4 lane road.

The Kelly team came to the front nearing the top of the final climb and rode super hard on the downhill catching the Fuerte Ventura rider with 4km to go and setting up a big bunch finish. In the finish Pinfold freelanced, following the fastest wheels and Cam led Christian to the line. "I went too early," Pinfold said after the race. "I misjudged the distance to the finish and Lacombe did an amazing sprint to hold off the two riders from Liberty."

Tomorrow should be a fairly uneventful day - it's mostly downhill, so there are no chances for the 4 riders on equal time on GC to create any time gaps.