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James Piccoli secures dramatic Tour de Beauce overall victory on final stage

Pier-André Côté wins in St.-Georges as Team Canada drive the breakaway to secure overall victory for Montreal-native

James Piccoli
June 18, 2018
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Montreal-native James Piccoli riding for Team Canada stormed to overall victory at the 2018 Tour de Beauce on the final day of the six-stage race. Piccoli rode in the breakaway on the challenging final circuit to wrestle the yellow jersey from UnitedHealthcare’s Serghei Tvetcov. Pier-André Côté of Silber Pro Cycling won the Stage 5 in St.-Georges.

Piccoli plotted his dramatic victory by infiltrating the day’s breakaway. After winning Saturday’s criterium in Quebec City, Piccoli sat in eighth place 1 min 10 sec off the time of Tvetcov. His second day in the break proved equally as fruitful as the group pushed out a gap of 1 min 36 sec by the finish line over the peloton. Piccoli would cross the line in fourth place and secure the biggest victory of his career.

“I can’t believe it! I never thought about it during the stage. I knew it was close to two laps from the end,” Piccoli said. “My teammate Jordan Cheyne did an amazing job up front. It’s an honour.”

Svein Tuft was the last Canadian to win the Tour de Beauce in 2008. Riding as Piccoli’s teammate Tuft is in his final season as a professional and finished 10th overall. In total, five Canadians finished in the top-10 with Mont-Megantic stage winner Jack Burke of Jelly Belly fourth, Rob Britton of Rally Cycling in fifth and Cheyne of Team Canada in ninth along with Piccoli’s first and Tuft’s 10th.

For Côté, it was his second stage win after triumphing on the opening stage. “I am really happy. After my first win on Wednesday, I thought the rest was icing on the cake,” he said.

Daniel Whitehouse of Interpro finished second and moved up to second overall pushing Tvetcov to third overall. Bruno Langlois racing for the Quebec provincial team was third on the day, he attacked solo but was reeled back in the final kilometre.

Tvetcov finished the race as the leader of the points classification with Ben Perry of Team Canada won the climbers classification. Thomas Revard of Hagens Berman Axon won the young riders classification.

The Canadian contingent at Beauce now head to the national championships in Saguenay which begin with the individual time trial on Thursday with the road races contested on Saturday.