Nathan Brown wins 2013 Tour de Beauce

On streets of Saint-Georges, Que., Nathan Brown (Bontrager Cycling Team) won the general classification in the 2013 Tour de Beauce, as well as the points jersey and the best young rider competition. Pat McCarty (Bissell) won the king of the mountain competition.

Diego Jimenez (Inteja-Dominican Cycling Team) took the stage 6 win ahead of Luis Romero Amaran (Jamis Hagens Berman) and Lucas Euser (UnitedHealthcare Pro Cycling). The trio were apart of a lengthly breakaway that successfully made it to the finish line ahead of a splintered main field.

The final stage of the Tour de Beauce included 10 laps of a 10.7-km circuit, totaling 107 kms. The peloton was very active during the first laps of the race, which resulted in several short-lived breakaways.

The decisive breakaway of the day formed on the second lap and included Jimenez, Romero, Euser and McCarty along with Nic Hamilton (Team Canada), Jason McCartney (Bissell), Kirk Carlsen (H&R Block) and Michael Woods (Garneau-Quebecor).

The time gap grew to over a minute by the fourth lap. Several chase groups formed behind the breakaway, led primarily by race leader Francisco Mancebo (5 Hour Energy). Top GC riders Brown, Christian Meier (Team Canada) and Phil Deignan (UnitedHealthcare) managed to bridge the gap to the breakaway on the sixth lap.

The prospects were looking very good for Brown, who was trailing Mancebo by a mere five seconds in the overall, and became the virtual leader on the road. Mancebo led the chasing field to hold the gap at just under one minute. With two laps go so, Mancebo launched an attack and was followed by three other riders, however, he was still forced to do most of the work. He reduced the time down to 20 seconds, but it wasn’t enough and he lost the race lead.

Brown set a fast pace during the last lap, increasing the time gap to over 30 seconds. He secured the overall win ahead of Deignan and Meier at the finish line.

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