Piccoli takes Tour de Beauce overall victory

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Once again, the final stage of the Tour de Beauce proved to be decisive, with James Piccoli (Team Canada) overtaking Serghei Tvetcov (UnitedHealthcare Pro Cycling) for the overall win after driving a race-long breakaway. Pier-André Côté (Silber Pro Cycling), the winner of stage 1, took the final stage win.

Piccoli, who had won the previous stage, went from 14th to eighth to first in the General Classification over the course of the last two stages. He is the first Canadian winner of Beauce since Svein Tuft in 2008, and the first winner from the host province of Quebec since Jacques Landry in 1994.

The final circuit stage through the streets of Saint-Georges is deceptively hard, with a steep 1.5km climb on each of the dozen 10.2km laps, plus 18 corners requiring constant braking and acceleration. It has led to many a race leader losing on the final stage, as rivals attack repeatedly, putting the yellow jersey and their team under pressure. Last year, Andzs Flakis (Holowesko-Citadel) also jumped from eighth to win the title on the final day.

Team Canada had shown in the fourth stage, in Quebec City, that they had the power, with three riders in the winning break. A group of nine riders broke clear on the first lap – Piccoli and teammate Jordan Cheyne, Matteo Dal Cin (Rally), Bruno Langlois (Equipe du Quebec), Côté, Joseph Lewis (Holowesko-Citadel), Jonathan Brown (Hagens Berman Axeon), Daniel Whitehouse (Interpro Stradalli) and Timothy Rugg (Ride with Rendall).

The group had two danger riders – Piccoli at 1:10 back and Whitehouse at 1:34. Initially, all the riders in the break were working to open a gap and it widened quickly, as UnitedHealthcare appeared to struggle with the pace on the climb. By the second lap the gap was over a minute and small chase groups were attempting to bridge; none successfully. Tvetcov's team limited the damage and looked to be pulling it back on the third lap with the time split dropping to 40 seconds, but the Team Canada riders – Piccoli and Cheyne – were pushing the pace at the front, and the peloton fractured under the pressure, and began to fall back.

By the mid-way point of the race, the gap was approaching two minutes and Piccoli was the virtual leader. The lead briefly surged to 2:20 with 35 kilometres to go, before stabilising at 1:50. Piccoli also had to worry about Whitehouse, who had been picking up bonus seconds in the bonus sprints, and attacked with three laps to go, just as Piccoli lost Cheyne to a crash in a corner.

The Team Canada rider was receiving some help from Langlois as they chased Whitehouse, and Cheyne managed to bridge back up to the lead group for the final lap and a half. Behind, the chase was down to 14 riders, with Tvetcov only having one teammate left for support. Silber put a man on the front to help with the chase, and the gap started dropping, putting Piccoli's win in jeopardy.

Langlois then attacked on the final climb, with three kilometres to the finish, but Piccoli and Cheyne dragged the rest of the group back, and Côté attacked to take the stage win, with Whitehouse second, Langlois third and Piccoli fourth. Tvetcov's group came in 1:36 down, and he dropped to third overall, with Whitehouse 11 seconds behind Piccoli and Tvetcov 27 seconds back.

"It hasn't totally sunk in, to be honest," said Piccoli. "The team's plan in the final two stages was to make it hard, attack and blow the race to pieces. And everyone did an amazing job of doing that. Jordan [Cheyne] rode out of his mind for me, and all the guys were laying it on the line for me. It was up to us to ride in the break, and we did it."

"After winning stage 1, the rest of the Tour was a bonus," said Côté. "In the breakaway I could let the national team ride and I could sit in all day because we had Adam [Roberge] sitting second overall. I had to gamble when Bruno attacked, but I followed James [Piccoli] back up and I just had to sprint for the win. So, I had the perfect day."

Tvetcov kept the points jersey, while Ben Perry (Team Canada) kept the climber's jersey, but Adam Roberge (Silber) lost the best young rider jersey to Thomas Revard (Hagens Berman Axeon). Team Canada also took the best overall team award, with three riders in the top 10: Cheyne in ninth, Tuft in 10th, and Piccoli with the overall title.

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