Fuglsang secures Tour of Denmark overall victory

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Jakob Fuglsang (Saxo Bank) won his third straight Tour of Denmark after surviving the final stage of the race from Høng to Rudersdal, in Copenhagen on Sunday. The Dane went into stage 6 with a 27-second advantage over Svein Tuft (Garmin - Transitions) and despite Hayden Roulston (Team HTC - Columbia) winning ahead of the bunch, Fuglsang finished safely in the peloton and retained his lead over Tuft and Matthew Busche (RadioShack), who finished in second and third overall respectively.

It rounded out an excellent race for Bjarne Riis's team, who despite upheaval off the bike, claimed the overall, the sprints and teams classifications as well as a stage win.

"With an amazing double victory on the queen stage, winning the points classification, teams classification and the overall victory, we are more than happy with the race outcome," Fuglsang said before walking onto the podium to collect his yellow jersey.

"The result is even better because of the fact that the field has never been stronger and it wasn't an easy task. Generally, the race has been well-organized and the organizers have done a great job establishing a race that became very entertaining."

Fuglsang laid the foundations for his third title when he finished second to teammate Matti Breschel on the race's toughest stage to Vejle and solidified his position with a strong ride in yesterday's 19.4-kilometre time trial.

Both Breschel and Fuglsang are strongly linked with moves away from Riis's team at the end of the year. Fuglsang's may be going to the new Luxembourg team based around Andy and Frank Schleck, while Breschel, who has been tipped to leave since the Spring, may be going to Rabobank.

2011 Worlds preview

Stage 6 finished on the 2011 World Championship circuit and on the final straight of next year's World Championships course in Copenhagen. Hayden Roulston flew uphill to take the win out of the last of many breaks that occurred during the stage.

"Hayden rode like he had diamonds in his legs today," said Sport Director Brian Holm. "He was amazing when he went up the final 800m straight."

"It was a very, very hard stage today," said Holm. "It was raining, and it was fast all day. At 120km, everything was still together so there were constant attacks."

Roulsten's win also capped an excellent week for the HTC team, who re-signed a number of riders for the next two seasons, along with taking three stages in Denmark and securing the white jersey through Rasmus Guldhammer.

"I'm really happy with the race today. We had someone in every break. All in all, it was a good week for us. Three wins with three different riders, so I'm happy. [Rasmus] Guldhammer also won the white jersey and came in sixth overall, so it was a very good race for him also."

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