Skujins wins final stage and overall title at the Tour de Beauce

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Hincapie Sportswear Development Team's Toms Skujins celebrated his 23rd birthday with an impressive flair Sunday at the 29th Tour de Beauce, winning the final stage and sealing the overall win along with the jerseys for best young rider and the points competition.

“That's how we race, right?” Skujins said after taking his second stage win of the five-day tour. “That's the Hincapie motto: just go as hard as you can for as long as you can. You have to give all of yourself and take risks. That's how to race.”

Skujins and his team covered all of the early moves on the difficult circuit race in St-Georges before the Latvian rider made the final selection and then sprinted away from the rest of the survivors during the long uphill drag to the finish.

Team SmartStop's Rob Britton crossed the line second on the stage and moved into second overall. Edson Arturo Calderon (4-72 Colombia) finished the stage third, while Serghei Tvetcov (Jelly Belly-Maxxis) clung to a third-place overall finish after crossing the line Sunday in 11th place.

The final day at the tour proved to be the most difficult of the week, with more riders abandoning the stage than finishing it. The 10.4km circuit started above the town of St-Georges and then twisted its way through a residential neighborhood before plunging down along the Chaudiere River in town. From there it turned back uphill toward the start/finish for another loop of the technical route. The riders circled the course 12 times for a total of 124.8km.

“It was definitely the hardest one, just because we did circuits and you had to climb this climb over and over again,” Skujins said. “And there is always the pressure of keeping the jersey and everything else.”

The day started without mercy as riders gunned it from the start and never really let up until they either abandoned or limped across the finish line. Several groups of 10 or fewer riders escaped the field and gained small gaps of 40 seconds or less, but the Hincapie team was determined not to let Skujins' grasp on the general classification slip away. The team limited any escapees' advantage to a manageable margin.

After much shaking and reshuffling, a group of 15 riders that included most of the general classification contenders assembled off the front. Mechanicals and a manic tempo soon whittled the front group down to seven, and from there the final selection left just five riders at the front with two laps remaining.

In the lead group were Skujins, Calderon, Britton, Bruno Langlois (5-hour Energy/Kenda) and Kirk Carlson (Jelly Belly). The leaders had a half-minute gap on a chasing group of seven riders and 55 seconds on the field, which had been reduced to about 20 riders.

Langlois flatted on the second-to-last lap and fell out of the group, while Amore & Vita's Michael Woods bridged from the first chase group to the leaders, who maintained their advantage over the closing circuits. The five riders at the front approached the final climb ready to fight it out amongst themselves for the win, and Woods tried to jump away with about a kilometer remaining.

Woods' move shattered the front group, and only Skujins, Britton and Calderon were able to come to terms with his effort. That trio eventually passed Woods, but Skujins put in a final winning kick with 200 meters to go. Britton clung to his wheel but was unable to come around, and Calderon hung on for third.

“Woods was our biggest concern,” Britton said of the finale. “And then Toms is obviously just on another level. He is so strong, and chapeau to him. He rode like a boss today. Next to Toms on the climbs, I knew [Woods] was the guy to watch. He hit out and just shattered everybody. I was able to mark him, and then with about 200 meters to go Toms started to wind it up. I could go with him, but really all I could do was watch in the last 100.”

Skujins effort on the day almost netted him the KOM jersey as well; he finished second in that competition, just 10 points behind polka-dot jersey winner Joshua Berry (Team SmartStop).

The results provided a very happy birthday for Skujins, who will now head back to Europe for his national championships.

“This birthday was definitely in the top three of the best ever,” Skujins said. “Probably the best one was in 1991, when I was born. That was probably the best one. But this is probably in the top three.”

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