2013 Tour de l’Abitibi: Stage 6
Americans take the lead
After a week of steaming conditions, things cooled down for Saturday’s race at the 45th Tour de l’Abitibi. However, the weather didn’t prevent the Americans from continuing to heat up the action in the world’s longest junior cycling event.
With the American and Canadian national teams once again pushing things hard from early on, it took until roughly the 30 km mark before a break could get away. As opposed to Friday’s miss, this time Team Canada got an athlete in the break: Felix Lapointe. He was joined by three other riders – one from each of Team Morocco, the U.S. team South Eastern Regional and Mid-Atlantic Development.
The group managed to say clear until they got back to town for three 5.4-km loops. After doing a lot more work at the front trying to help Canada keep the pressure up, super-sprinter Hendrik Pineda didn’t have quite the same jump, but still managed to keep Mid-Atlantic’s speedy Dakota Schaeffer honest right to the line. Pineda maintained his grip of the points jersey with his second, while CF Racing’s Austin Vincent took third.
The U.S. National squad continued their impressive riding after a breakthrough day on Friday by keeping both the overall (Brendan Rhim) and young rider (William Barta) jerseys heading into Sunday’s final stage.
Related
Tour de l’Abitibi: Stages 3 and 4
Tour de l’Abitibi: Challenge sprint
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