Rob Britton 10th at Tour of Taiwan

On Thursday, Rob Britton finished the Tour of Taiwan, placing 10th in the general classification. His Team SmartStop teammate and captain Zach Bell finished 54th overall.

The team’s plan for the five-day stage race (March 22 to 26) was stage wins. SmartStop’s squad was rounded out with Jure Kocjan, Julian Kyer and current U.S. champion Eric Marcotte. Going into the final stage, the closest they got to the podium was Kocjan’s sixth-place finish on the third stage. Britton moved into 10th spot on the GC after Stage 4, which featured a 70-km-long climb that went up 2,000 m.

During the final 178-km stage, the Canadians were in a few moves. “On the [final] circuit, the gap started to drop and the group worked hard to make it stick,” said Bell, “but lights started going out about 15 km to go so I went away on my own with about a 45 second gap.

“It forced the other sprint teams to continue a hard chase and burn through more guys. I was caught about 4.5 km from the line.”

SmartStop then tried to set up for Kocjan for the sprint, but that plan didn’t work out. Marcotte launch with 800 m to go, but got caught 100 m from the line. Tino Thömel (Germany/RTS-Santic Racing Team) took the final stage, while Mirsamad Pourseyedigolakhour (Iran/Tabriz Petrochemical Team) won the race overall.