Stuyven wins Tour de Beauce opener
Boivin second in bunch sprint in Lac-Etchemin
Jasper Stuyven (Bontrager) won the bunch sprint at the opening stage of the Tour de Beauce on Tuesday. The young rider from Belgium out-paced Canada’s Guillaume Boivin (Team Canada) in second and Andrea Peron (Novo Nordisk) to the line in Lac-Etchemin. Stuyven is now leading the overall classification.
The Tour de Beauce opening stage started and finished in Lac-Etchemin. It was a relatively flat 165-km circuit that included two intermediate sprints and two king of the mountain ascents before finishing on a fast downhill run into town.
Two riders broke away from the main field early in the stage and created a maximum time gap of nearly nine minutes. Those two riders were James Stemper (5 Hour Energy/Kenda) and Alex Cataford (Garneau-Quebecor).
Cataford picked up full points at the two intermediate sprints and Stemper accumulated points on the climbs. The pair of breakaway riders were reeled back in just a few kilometres to the finish line.
The race will continue on Wednesday with the Stage 2 race in Thetford-Mines.
[HTML1]
