US cyclist and Tour de France freshman Will Frischkorn, right, finished second on Stage 3 at the Tour de France on Monday in a hard fought 3-man sprint.
The move catapulted him into 3rd place overall from down in 122nd at the beginning of the day. What an amazing finish for a guy who showed up for his first Tour de France as a domestique on a continental cycling team.
The 27-year-old cyclist for Garmin-Chipotle was a member of a four-man breakaway that survived for the entire 129-mile stage from Saint Malo to Nantes. He received the “Most Aggressive Rider” award for the day.
That breakaway included stage winner Samuel Dumoulin (Cofidis) and the new overall leader, Romain Feillu of Agritubel, who won the yellow jersey from Alejandro Valverde.
Break
The fourth member of the breakaway, Italian Paolo Longo Borghini of Barloworld, did not contest the sprint and finished in 4th place. Feillu, Frischkorn and Dumoulin each took turns attacking in the final kilometer.
The four worked together all day, gaining as much as 14 minutes on the peloton. Frischkorn said after the race that they knew they had a great chance of surviving at the 50-kilometer point when they still had an 8-minute margin. His reaction:
“I'm disappointed…. I thought I had a chance there. There was a little bit of cat and mouse. I was trying to conserve. Be smart. I think I hesitated too much.”
Frischkorn
This is the first Tour de France for Frischkorn, who lives in Charlottesville, Virginia. Fans of last year's Tour of Missouri will remember Frischkorn, who finished second overall in that race.
More about Frischkorn at the Garmin-Chipotle website.
It's also the first Tour for his team, Garmin-Chipotle. The pro continental team had been riding as Slipstream-Chipotle until the beginning of the Tour.
In addition to having two riders in the top 10, the US-based team also is leading the overall team competition.
Frischkorn is one of just four US cyclists in this year's Tour de France. Assigned a domestique role on Garmin, he was free to join the early morning breakaway. Teammate Danny Pate took off in a breakaway on Sunday but wasn't so lucky.
All day
The four man breakaway attacked just one or two kilometers into the stage and gained up to 14 minutes midway through the race. All the cyclists faced headwinds and spitting rain most of the day, and the four were able to remain more than six minutes ahead with just 25 miles left.
It appeared the peloton might make a bid to catch up with about 16 miles remaining as the time started dropping down to about 5 minutes. US-based Team Columbia and QuickStep were driving the peloton, but not fast enough.
A big accident with some serious injuries broke up the peloton before the cyclists turned and finally caught a tailwind into Nantes.
The stage winners gained a least 2 minutes on the leading chase group. The Versus commentators speculated that the peloton's biggest cyclists were perhaps conserving energy for Tuesday's 18-mile individual time trial.
Top 10 overall
1 Romain Feillu (Fra) Agritubel
2 Paolo Longo Borghini (Ita) Barloworld, 35 seconds behind
3 William Frischkorn (USA) Garmin Chipotle – H30, 1:42
4 Alejandro Valverde (Spa) Caisse d'Epargne, 1:45
5 Kim Kirchen (Lux) Columbia, 1:46
6 Oscar Freire (Spa) Rabobank
7 Jérôme Pineau (Fra) Bouygues Telecom
8 David Millar (GBr) Garmin Chipotle – H30
9 Cadel Evans (Aus) Silence-Lotto
10 Filippo Pozzato (Ita) Liquigas
After Frischkorn in 3rd place, the other US riders are:
19. George Hincapie, Team Columbia, 1:52 behind
25. Christian Vande Velde, Garmin
122. Danny Pate, Garmin, 6:05
Loading tweets...
Recent Comments