Benedetti wins stage 1 at Tour de Beauce

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Luca Benedetti (Amore Vita-Selle SMP) took the bunch sprint in Saint Justine, Quebec, Wednesday to claim the first stage win of the 2014 Tour de Beauce and the race's first leader's jersey. The 25-year-old Italian out-sprinted Optum Pro Cycling's Eric Young and Christina Watches' Asbjorn Kragh Anderson on the slightly uphill run to the line after nearly 200km of racing.

"I'm really happy because I didn't expect it," Benedetti said through a translator. "This is my sixth pro race. I turned pro June 1 in Philadelphia, and so it wasn't expected, but the finish was a good finish for me. I'm super happy that I can thank the team and the Fanini family who believed in me. And I'd also like to dedicate this victory in Canada to my director [Phil Cortes] because he is Canadian."

The first stage of the 29th Tour de Beauce circled a 49.1km loop four times through the rolling terrain surrounding Saint Justine for a total of 196.4km. The long distance didn't discourage the early breakaway, which began to form about 5km into the race. The initial group of five soon swelled to eight and then 10 as riders continued to bridge to the breakaway throughout the first lap.

Christina Watches' Jimmi Sorenson and Amore Vita's Leonardo Pinizzotto were the last two escapees to join the front group, which already contained Nicolas Lefrancois (Novo Nordisk), Jon Hornbeck (5-hour Energy/Kenda), Remi Pelletier-Roy (Garneau-Qubecor), Joey Rosskpof and Joe Schmalz (Hincapie Sportswear), Oleksandr Sheydyk (ISD Continental Team), Josh Berry (Team SmartStop) and Casey Roth (Ride with Rendall).

The leaders quickly built a gap of 11:25 by the end of the first trip around the circuit, while the five-rider Optum squad was left to shoulder the workload at the front of the chase by itself.

"We thought that the other teams that missed the break would also put some guys in and help," Optum's Young said after the finish. "And I guess that was a wrong assumption."

The lead of more than 11 minutes was the biggest gap in the race's first stage since 2002, when Svein Tuft and Henk Vogels rode away together and built an advantage of more than 20 minutes. Vogels eventually won the stage and the overall that year, but Optum, riding for Young on the stage and trying to preserve the general classification hopes for Carter Jones, was determined not to see a repeat of the 2002 result. The team massed all of its riders on the front of the field and slowly started whittling away at the gap.

Up ahead, the breakaway riders cooperated well to hold off the catch, attacking only when they were contesting the intermediate sprints and the day's three KOMs. But Optum's work was paying off, and the team had the gap down to just eight minutes as the riders passed through Saint Justine to start the third lap. By the time they came around again to start the final leg, the escapees had jettisoned Roth from the group and held an advantage of just 5:45 over the field.

From that point the gap consistently plummeted, and when it came down to just more than four minutes with 36km remaining, a group of five peeled away from the rest of the escapees to extend their time away from the field. Sorenson, Pinizzotto, Schmalz, Sheydyk and Pelletier-Roy continued the battle, while the others slowly drifted back into the fold. With Hornbeck out of the lead group, 5-hour Energy relieved Optum on the front of the field with about 20km still to race.

"I wanted Hornbeck to have his opportunity, and he got the KOM jersey, which is great," said 5-hour team director Frankie Andreu. "But once the split happened and then it was like a minute and half between the two groups, I put my team on the front because I couldn't come in at the end of the day and have my entire team two minutes down. So it wasn't for the sprint, it was to just get out of this day at neutral and then see what happens tomorrow."

Andreu's team systematically pulled back the two groups, catching the four riders who had fallen out of the lead with less than 5km remaining. Pinizzotto sensed the impending catch and jumped away from the front group again, maintaining about 30 seconds for a short time before the 5-hour chase pulled him back within 3km to go, setting up the bunch sprint.

"Today was the best scenario possible with a guy in the break of the day," Benedetti said. "[Pinozzotto] trying to resist in the final helped us keep our team near the front without doing any work, and then when it was time for the team to work, they came to the front and worked, and the fruits of the labor show here."

The Tour de Beauce continues Thursday with the Queen Stage, a 167.4km route that finishes with the climb up Mont Megantic. Francisco Mancebo, riding for 5-hour Energy last year, won the stage in 2013.

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