Bouet wins Giro del Trentino opener

Maxime Bouet (Ag2r-La Mondiale) claimed victory on stage 1a of the Giro del Trentino, as the early breakaway stayed clear and arrived in Lienz with a significant advantage over the main peloton.

Bouet out-sprinted his breakaway companions Josef Cerny (CCC Polsat Polkowice) and Michael Rodriguez (Colombia) after they slipped away from the earlier eight-man move in the closing kilometres, while the main peloton crossed the line 6:51 down.

In spite of the buffer in the overall standings, Bouet played down his chances of holding off the main favourites in the mountain stages to come.

“Seven minutes is a lot of time but also not a lot of time,” Bouet smiled. “I think the climbs to come will be too difficult and Domenico Pozzovivo is our leader, but if I still have four or five minutes after tomorrow, then I might think about the general classification.”

Instead, Bouet was happy simply to celebrate a hard-fought stage victory, which came after he had spent the entire stage off the front of the peloton. The decisive break went clear in the opening kilometres of the morning stage and Bouet found himself in a determined group with Rodriguez, Cerny, Enzo Moyano (Caja Rural-Seguros RGA), Gang Xu (Champion System), Jacques Janse Van Rensburg (MTN-Qhubeka), Pavel Kochekov (Rusvelo) and Nicola Dal Santo (Ceramiche Flaminia).

“I didn’t want to be in the break at first, I just wanted a tranquillo day but the more it went on the more confident I became,” Bouet said, and with good reason – they quickly built a lead in excess of five minutes and there was precious little reaction from the main peloton.

After 57 kilometres of racing, the octet had 8:50 in hand over the bunch, which to that point had been led by Vini Fantini-Selle Italia and Androni-Venezuela. Citing a lack of willing collaborators, however, Vini Fantini called off their pursuit shortly afterwards and it became apparent that the eight leaders would battle it out for stage honours.

With no major obstacles in the opening 100km of racing, the break collaborated smoothly until the one categorised climb, the Iselsberg (115km). As the gradient pitched upwards, Michael Rodriguez hit the front. The Colombian reached the summit 17 seconds ahead of Bouet and Van Rensburg, but he was reeled in on the descent.

On the run-in to the finish, the young Czech rider Josef Cerny sensed his opportunity and clipped off the front, but Bouet and Rodriguez were alert to the danger and jumped across to his wheel. In the sprint in Lienz, the Austrian town where Michele Bartoli won a stage of the 1994 Giro d’Italia, Bouet had too much for his breakaway companions and claimed the stage win.

“In the finale when there were three of us in front, I was confident because I knew I was good in the sprint,” said Bouet, who claimed his first win since a stage of the 2010 Tour de l’Ain. “I was emotional because my last win was over two years ago. I’ve been in a lot of breaks in a lot of races since then but I haven’t had a lot of wins.”

Enrico Battaglin (Bardiani-CSF Inox) led the main peloton home, some 6:51 down on Bouet.

The Giro del Trentino continues on Tuesday afternoon with a 14.1km team time trial in Lienz.

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