Ganna wins Étoile de Bessèges final stage, Wellens wins overall: Daily News
Hello again, CyclingTips readers,
The news is jam-packed with road racing action between the men’s and women’s road nationals in Australia and the final stage of Étoile de Bessèges.
Plus, some bad news from the Specialized headquarters in the UK.
Read on for the latest news from the world of cycling.
Abby Mickey
Associate Editor
What’s news?
Ganna wins Étoile de Bessèges final stage, Wellens wins overall
The world time trial champion Filippo Ganna was victorious on the fifth and final stage of Étoile de Bessèges. Ganna won the final day by only 10 seconds, not enough time to take the general classification lead from Tim Wellens who finished fourth on the day, 29 seconds down.
Ganna also won stage four of Étoile de Bessèges after a solo breakaway in the final 10 km.
Benjamin Thomas finished second in the final stage ITT with Ganna’s teammate, Ethan Hayter finishing third.
The 10.7 km individual time trial featured a flat out and back and finished at the Sanctuaire Notre-Dame des Mines after a 2.5 km ascent with 5.9% gradient.
Wellens won the general classification by 53 seconds over his closest rival, Michal Kwiatkowski. Nils Politt rounded out the overall podium 59 seconds down from Wellens.
Sarah Roy is the 2021 Australian road national champion
Sarah Roy will wear the green and gold of the Australian national champion in 2021 after a 30 km long solo breakaway. Roy had been part of an earlier move alongside her teammate Grace Brown, who took silver, and Lauretta Hanson, who was third on the day.
“I just didn’t expect this today,” Roy said. “I didn’t come here to do this. It wasn’t my plan. I had no consideration of this whatsoever,” she added, laughing. “But I think that’s what makes it more exciting and makes you more emotional.”
Read the full report here.
Cameron Meyer wins Australian road national title
Cameron Meyer took the sprint victory from a group of seven riders at the Australian road national championships after an aggressive day of racing. With a flurry of attacks in the leadup to the finish, a sprint looked unlikely, but Meyer assisted by Luke Durbridge was able to put himself in the perfect place to sprint for the green and gold jersey.
Kelland O’Brien was second while Scott Bowden took third.
The full report and video highlights can be found here.
Specialized UK headquarters fire
The Specialized UK headquarters in Chessington has been devastated by an overnight fire that occurred in the evening on Saturday. No humans were injured in the fire and the cause is still under investigation.
It took 12 fire trucks and 80 firefights to gain control of the blaze that raged for four hours. A source on the scene told Cycling Weekly “from what I saw the place is gutted.” Kirsty Woodcock, the head of marketing for Specialized UK, said, “there will be some short-term changes to certain business operations, but our warehouse is located elsewhere and riders should not be concerned.”
The damaged warehouse was the home to offices, a workshop, demo bikes, and a showroom.
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