July 30/08 11:29 am - Tour de l'Abitibi: Stage 5 & Final GC<

Posted by Editoress on 07/30/08
 

Tour de l'Abitibi Val-d'Or QC

Jouffroy Captures the 40th Tour de l'Abitibi...only just!

The Tour de l'Abitibi came to a fitting end Tuesday under blue skies and brilliant sunshine. Arnaud Jouffroy of the French National Team came up the big winner of this year's event, with 28-hundredths of a second separating him from American Charlie Avis. The latter showed his good sportsmanship, shaking Jouffroy's hand in congratulation, even though he was clearly disappointed a few minutes earlier at the finish line.

The final stage of the Tour de l'Abitibi linked Amos to Val-d'Or over the 96-kilometre route. Oleksandr Shapoval of the Ukraine National Team was the fastest cyclist on the course today, coming in at 2 hours 12 minutes 30 seconds. Kazakhstan's Daniil Fominykh was close behind, giving him his deserved second place. The rest of the field rushed across the finish line with Australian Jamie Crass in the lead at 2 hours 12 minutes 43 seconds.

Arnaud Demare of France held on to the orange jersey since today's winners were not close enough to him in total points to cause any harm to his standing. The leader's jersey evaded Charlie Avis of the American National Team this year, but he should be proud of the fact that he is the best first-year junior of the entire event.

There was little that interfered with the running of the day's stage, save for a few crashes. One of those to crash was Iggy Silva (USA) and it occurred 300 metres before the finish line. Silva's mandate in this stage was to help his team-mate Charlie Avis, who found himself finishing the race alone.