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July 30, Stage 2: Aars - Århus 190km

Saxo Bank two-for-two in Denmark

By:

Cycling News

Published:

July 30, 2009, 17:25,

Updated:

July 30, 2009, 20:55

Sørensen solos to win, moves into race lead

Photos

Denmark's Nicki Sørensen (Team Saxo Bank), winner of stage 12 in the recently concluded Tour de France, continued his run of good form with a solo victory in the Tour of Denmark's second stage.

Sørensen arrived at the finish in Århus with a 20-second lead over a peloton decimated by crosswinds and the tempo set by Team Saxo Bank and Cervélo TestTeam in the latter part of the stage. Sørensen's teammate and overnight race leader Matti Breschel took the sprint for second ahead of Martin Reimer (Cervélo Test Team) in a 30-rider chase group.

Sørensen's margin of victory in the 190-kilometre stage moved the Dane into the race lead previously held by his teammate Breschel. Breschel holds second place on general classification 11 seconds behind Sørensen with Australia's Simon Gerrans (Cervélo TestTeam) a further 11 seconds back in third place.

"Coming into the stage with Matti as the race leader, tactically we didn't want any group getting away that didn't contain Matti, unless of course it was one of us going solo," Sørensen said. "So when Matti attacked and was caught, I had been thinking about going myself at that point, we knew we had to make it a hard race for everyone and I think we succeeded very well.

"Today the team was incredibly strong. During the race guys like Anders Lund, Kasper Klostergaard, Frank Høj, and Alex Rasmussen rode amazingly to split up the peloton, at the end, the rest was up to us to finish it off."

In the opening hour of racing a series of attacks combined with strong winds threatened to rip the peloton to pieces, but the field managed to re-group and settle down once a six-rider break deemed not a threat by Team Saxo Bank, the team of overnight race leader Matti Breschel, went clear. The rides comprising the main break of stage two included Klaas Lodewyck (Topsport Vlaanderen-Mercator), Thomas Riber-Sellebjerg (Team Capinordic), Alan Marangoni (CSF Group-Navigare), Kasper Jebjerg (Team Designa Køkken), Kasper Linde (Glud & Marstrand Horsens) and Simon Lerbech (Team Concordia-Vesthimmerland).

The six riders stretched out their lead to six minutes over the field, but the break's advantage steadily decreased under the impetus of Team Saxo Bank and Cervélo TestTeam. The sextet led the field by four minutes with 100 kilometres of racing remaining and only 2:30 with 50 kilometres to the finish.

Once the peloton passed inside of 50 kilometres to go, it split in the fierce crosswinds. A lead chase group of 30 formed dominated by three teams: Saxo Bank and Cervélo TestTeam each had seven of its eight riders represented while Team Capinordic placed five in the move.

This 30-rider chase group absorbed the break with approximately 25 kilometres remaining and continued to stretch its lead over the remainder of the peloton.

Matti Breschel attacked alone inside of 10 kilometres remaining but was chased down by Cervélo TestTeam. Breschel's teammate Nicki Sørensen counterattacked and this time Cervélo was not successful in its pursuit. Sørensen soloed to victory and acquired the leader's jersey from Breschel.

"It will be a hard stage again tomorrow and I would love to see one of us go out solo and win the stage like today," Sörensen said. "We are by far the strongest team here so I would say, yes, anything less than winning would be a disappointment."

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