Brown wins Tour de Beauce overall

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The sixth and final stage of the Tour de Beauce, the very difficult circuit race in St, Georges, lived up to its reputation and delivered one of the most exciting finales in the 28th edition of the event.

Diego Milan Jimenez (Inteja) won the stage in a sprint ahead of Luis Amaran (Jamis-Hagens Berman) and Lucas Euser (UnitedHealthcare) from a nine-rider breakaway group while Nathan Brown (Bontrager), second overall starting the stage, claimed the overall victory after he bridged up to the break with four laps to go in the 107km stage.

"The victory is very important for the team, it's a very small team and it's growing so this is a good opportunity for the team to start to grow," said Jimenez through a translator.

"It's amazing. The team rode great all week and to finish it off is a great feeling," Brown said of the biggest victory of his career, so far. "Got third at US Pro and second at U23 Liege so it's been a great year so far, I'm glad to top off the first part of the year with this."

Only three seconds down in the general classification at the start of the stage, Brown along with other contenders Phil Deignan (UnitedHealthcare) and Christian Meier (Canadian National Team) eventually escaped off the front in pursuit of the early break. The move forced an isolated yellow jersey Francisco Mancebo (5-hour Energy p/b Kenda) to give chase with Deignan's teammate Ben Day on his wheel.

"Christian attacked and Mancebo had no teammates left and I went across to him," said Brown. "Mancebo had no reaction and I was thinking 'wow this could be it'. We worked great together, everyone was working good. It got close so I knew that the last time up the climb, I had to punch it, I gave it everything I had and it paid off in the end."

Deignan finished second overall at 36 seconds down while Meier was third, at 44 seconds.

"Another hard day, it was a short very aggressive day and we know the circuit quite well from the past racing here," said Meier who had to defend the yellow jersey of his then Symmetrics teammate Svein Tuft years ago. "5-hour Energy put up a good fight and did the best they could but in the end, I think that there were just too many guys out for GC today and unfortunate for them it was left to Paco in the end, on his own. You can follow so many moves but you can't follow them all and I think that's what happened in the end."

Brown also added the best young rider title as well as the final points jersey to his victory.

How it unfolded

With only 10 laps around the technical circuit, attacks flew in the race with the UnitedHealthcare team leading the charge every time up the climb. The goal was simple, to make Mancebo's 5-hour Energy team expend a lot of energy to cover the moves. A counter-move on the second lap launched several riders off the front. The break included Nic Hamilton (Canadian National Team), Jason McCartney and Patrick McCarty (Bissell), Michael Woods (Garneau-Quebecor), Kirk Carlsen (H&R Block), Amaran, Euser and Jimenez.

"I started the break, I got caught, I was in the break again, I kept working," said Euser. "I knew that I had to be up there today. I knew that I could present a big threat to 5-hour Energy being semi-close so they have to ride a little bit hard. The whole plan was just to send guys up the road. They were never going to let us go so that's the whole point, that's why this is a team sport, that's why it's so beautiful, it's not the individual."

Woods was the highest-placed overall, at two minutes and 23 seconds down while Euser was a further second down. While the 5-hour Energy team set the pace at the front of the field, UnitedHealthcare attacked every time up the climb, applying even more pressure. The gap was held at around the one-minute mark for lap after lap, while a few short-lived chase riders emerged until Brown, Meier and Deignan made their move.

"It turned out that the race ended up being quite aggressive through mostly UnitedHealthcare and I was able to benefit from that," said Meier. "Followed a move with [Philip] Deignan and Nathan Brown, we went across to the breakaway and then, I had Nic Hamilton in the breakaway and he rode full gas. Lucas Euser from UHC rolled, all the guys that were going for the GC, Nathan Brown and Philip, everyone committed straight away and it was fantastic."

"Everybody was working well until the three GC guys came across," explained Amaran on the tactics change.

Hamilton worked for Meier, Euser for Deignan and Brown for himself as they pushed the reformed break. With three laps to go, the 11 riders had a 55-second lead on Mancebo who was not giving up. The next time up the climb Mancebo gave a big dig, shattered the field and jumped away to chase solo with Day sitting on his wheel. He was able to reduce the gap down to 20 seconds but he couldn't quite close it and by the bell lap, the gap was back up to 45 seconds.

"When the guys knew that Mancebo was coming with Ben Day, Nate and Christian Meier went hard the last two laps to keep the gap," Amaran explained.

Brown accelerated the final time up the climb to seal the yellow jersey, now he only needed to finish safely as the rain started to come down.

"Coming into the final three kilometers, it started to sprinkle and all I was thinking about was stay safe, don't crash, don't crash. So the guys hit at 500 to go and I just rode it in because I knew that I had enough time and I wasn't going to lose it," Brown said with a smile.

The others in the break focused on the final sprint for the victory.

"The last lap, it was kind of easy for me because I left the responsibility for the GC guys," said Jimenez. "Nate did a very good job on the last climb and kept a very high pace. I knew that I had chances and finally I was lucky enough to get the victory."

McCarty won the King of the Mountain classification while the UnitedHealthcare squad took the overall team classification.

Euser concluded, "Third on GC, put a lot of guys on the podium this week, took the team classification and second overall, I think we have to be happy. You always want that win but I think that we have to be happy with this."