De Maar triumphs in Québec

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Marc de Maar (UnitedHealthcare) took the win on stage 5, the tough Quebec City Circuit race, in a sprint from the day-long breakaway. Quebec City resident Antoine Duchesne (Bontrager) was second and Oscar Clark (Hincapie Sportswear), third. Francisco Mancebo and his 5-Hour Energy p/b Kenda team successfully defended the yellow jersey and the Spaniard goes into Sunday's final, another difficult circuit race in St Georges, with a six-second lead on his closest competitor.

Winner of the Quebec City stage in 2010, de Maar made his way into the early five-rider break with grew to nine when a four-ride chase group, which included GC threat Christian Meier (Canadian National Team), bridged across with 21 kilometers to go.

"With two laps to go, a few guys out of the bunch caught us which was an ideal situation for me because I could tell them, sorry I'm not working anymore because I have my GC guys in the chasing group so I was just sitting for the last one and a half laps. Meier was doing lots of work, he pretty much did it by himself so the rest of us were sitting on," de Maar said.

"The last few kilometers there were some attacks, I countered everything and then it was a long sprint. I went with 300 meters to go, I was too tired to put my hands in the air," he continued with a laugh. "It was a hard race, it's a beautiful race, I've won it before and I love to be racing here. It was a good day for the team, hopefully we can get the other objective tomorrow."

"When we got to the last lap, I knew that I had good legs," said Duchesne, who lives one kilometer from the finish line. "I know that I don't have a very good sprint so close to the top of the climb, I tried to go but there were three of us at the top. We started to look at each other and to sit up. I waited, and then positioned myself for the sprint but I was not able to come around Marc at the end."

The 21-year-old racer, who hails from Chicoutimi originally, admitted to feeling the pressure to perform for his home crowd. "All my family is here from Montreal, my friends, I had a lot of fans around, everyone was screaming my name. I would have loved to have won for everyone, a second place is pretty good too."

Mancebo praised his teammates. "Today I was good, the team worked a lot and very well for me. Tonight, we rest and recover and tomorrow will be another very, very hard day. Those last 100 kilometers will be the hardest 100 kilometers of the Tour."

How it unfolded

Attacks flew early on in the 12-lap race which uses a large section of the route used by the Grand Prix cycliste de Québec, a UCI WorldTour race, until five riders escaped on the second lap. The move included Jamey Driscoll (Jamis-Hagens Berman), Guillaume Boivin (Canada National Team), Craig Lewis (Champion System), Clark and de Maar.

De Maar had to adjust his strategy when he saw the composition of the break. "The focus was pretty much on GC so the plan was for our GC guys to put the pressure on Mancebo's team and then the rest of the team, [Davide] Frattini, myself and [Jonny Clarke, would look for early breaks. We were hoping that dangerous threats on GC would come with us and put the pressure on the guys to keep the gap close so the GC guys could attack on the final.

"The break went up the road and I was with them but unfortunately there were no dangerous guys for GC in there and it was a bit of a weird situation but we kept on going, everybody was fully committed to work."

The five riders worked well together but the gap was never threatening to Mancebo, going to over three minutes for a short time before it came back down.

Mancebo was quite happy with the composition of the break with Clark the highest on GC at two minutes and 56 seconds down. "Oscar was there and he was three minutes behind me so okay for three minutes, it's okay for us. But behind, the Canada Team were not happy."

He was right. Halfway through the race, the Canadian National Team DS Gord Fraser told his boys that it was time to put pressure on.

"We were sort of in that position it was all or nothing, you have to go for broke. Because a minute and a half, you can't wait for the last lap and make up a minute and a half," explained Meier who was one minute and 28 seconds down on GC at the start of the stage.

Meier continued, "A few times through the start finish, the guys started attacking again but the problem with those two attacking (Cooper, Britton) and the others was because they weren't on GC, 5-hour Energy were pretty smart and didn't panic and let them go so a couple of time. I attacked on the start/finish just to put them under pressure and make them work. And then, we could start to see that they were coming apart a little bit and then finally, the third time, Rob and Marsh snuck off the front on the hill and I just bridged across and that was it, and we just went for it. These guys just drove it and we got across to the break and we had Guillaume there, then he drove it and the guys did an unbelievable job."

Jumping on the Canadian blue train as it made its way across was Duchesne. "With five or six laps to go, attacks started to happen and I saw that the riders around me were having a bit of trouble and I was feeling good on the climb so, I told myself to stay attentive because I had to do something if I had good legs. So when I saw the Canadians go, I went too. Since there were three of them, I didn't have to pull, I had a bit of a free ride to the break. Then, when we made it across, I attacked immediately to give it a good jolt."

With Meier in the mix, tactics changed. Both de Maar and Duchesne sat on as they had to protect the GC position of their teammates. A decision that Meier understood. "Unfortunately I had to [pull because if I was going to get time, the guys were playing for the stage, it's pretty normal."

At that point, Clark started to think that the break would make it to the finish line. "They all worked together, they were going for GC so they were just going as hard as they could. They had the one guy left, Meier, he was riding for GC time so he was just going all out."

The jockeying for position for the sprint started the final time up the climb up Cote de la Montagne with a 10 percent average grade but most of the break was still together afterwards.

After the dust settled, Mancebo has a five second lead on Nathan Brown (Bontrager) and eight seconds on Matt Cooke (CRCA). Ben Day (UnitedHealthcare) is in fourth place at 17 seconds while Meier moved up to sixth place, 47 seconds down.

The 28th edition of the Tour de Beauce concludes on Sunday with the 107km St Georges Circuit Race, where each lap includes a 1.3km climb with 6 percent average grade.