Tirreno-Adriatico #3: Edvald Boasson Hagen our highest placed in bunch sprint
Team Dimension Data for Qhubeka finish with 15th on the stage
The 3rd stage of Tirreno-Adriatico came down to a bunch sprint with Fernando Gaviria (Etixx-Qickstep) winning the stage ahead of Caleb Ewan (Orica-Greenedge) and Elia Viviani (Team Sky).
It was a regular sprinters stage today as the only climb of the day summited with still 65km to go. The peloton allowed a 4 rider break to go clear and they rode away to a 4’30” lead over the Etixx led peloton.
Orica-Greenedge would also contribute a rider to the chase and that was enough to make sure the escape was kept at a manageable time gap all stage. The catch was calculated to near perfection as with 5km to go, a charging peloton raced into Montalto di Castro to contest the sprint finish.
Team Dimension Data for Qhubeka were riding for Edvald Boasson Hagen once again today. Mark Cavendish did a great turn to bring the team to the front of the race with 1km to go. Mark Renshaw then went shoulder to shoulder with the Tinkoff riders as they went under the flamme rouge, with Boasson Hagen in tow.
As the sprint opened up the final was not as hard as our African Team had hoped and Boasson Hagen lost a few places while Gaviria charged ahead to take a good victory. Our Norwegian champion went on to cross the line in 15th position as our highest placed rider on the day.
Roger Hammond – Sport Director
The stage went pretty much as planned. We always knew it was going to be a hectic final. The finish wasn’t quite as hard as we had hoped. Edvald got dropped off at the bottom of that final kicker with 600m to go but got swamped. By all accounts it was a really hectic final and probably wasn’t the perfect finish for Eddy but he did the best sprint he could.
Team Dimension Data For Qhubeka
Team Dimension Data for Qhubeka was founded in 2007, steadily working its way up from a regional team to now being a World Tour team with bases in South Africa and Italy. It’s also known as Africa’s Team due to its focus on helping African talents to the world stage of cycling. The team races to raise funds for the Qhubeka Charity to mobilise people on bicycles in Africa. To contribute to the #BicyclesChangeLives Campaign, click here.
Qhubeka is an Nguni word that means “to progress”, “to move forward”. Qhubeka (qhubeka.org) is part of World Bicycle Relief (worldbicyclerelief.org), a global non-profit organisation dedicated to advancing education, health and economic opportunities by providing simple, sustainable transportation through the power of bicycles.
Dimension Data harnesses the transformative power of technology to help organisations achieve great things in the digital era. As member of the NTT Group, we focus on digital infrastructure, hybrid cloud, workspaces for tomorrow, cybersecurity, and network as the platform. With a turnover of USD 7.5 billion and offices in 58 countries, we deliver services wherever our clients are, at every stage of their technology journey. Accelerate your ambition.
Learn more about the team at www.africasteam.com.
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