Cannonade in Besançon

Sergei Ivanov from Katyusha won the Big Loop stage

Cyclist of the Russian Katyusha team Sergei Ivanov won Saturday's stage of the most prestigious stage race of the international calendar, the Tour de France. Sergei spent almost the entire 200-kilometer distance between the cities of Colmar and Besançon in the early breakaway group of a dozen participants, and closer to the finish he made a stunning leap in speed, leaving his fellow travelers.

For Katusha, created in 2009, this is the first victory in the Grand Tour series, which includes the May Giro d'Italia, the Tour de France and the autumn Vuelta a España. Sergei Ivanov, who celebrated his 34th birthday last spring, had previously won on the Big Loop. In 2001, he was the first to cross the finish line on stage nine. In general, Ivanov’s current season in a new team for him (he previously played for Farm-Frites, Fassa Bortolo, T-Mobile and Astana) is going just great. In mid-April, Ivanov won the one-day race of the Spring Classic super series - Amstel Gold Race on the roads of Holland. Before the Tour de France, Sergei managed to defend the title of Russian champion in the group race for the second time.

Ivanov’s new success is especially valuable because in the last kilometers of the distance he had to fight with such well-known participants in a long and productive run (at times the peloton was 8 minutes behind), such as the American George Hincapie and the recognized Italian sprinter Daniele Bennati. Already about 40 kilometers before the finish it became clear: the caravan was powerless to catch up with the gap. A tactical struggle for victory at the stage began in a small group. Having repulsed several attacks from competitors, Ivanov very accurately calculated the moment when he himself had to rush forward. The Russian’s advantage turned out to be unconditional; he accelerated to the 30-second handicap and only slowed down a little on a small stretch before the finish.

Russian victories at stages of the Tour de France are extremely rare. “Victoria” Ivanova is only the third for representatives of our country in the last ten years. Before Sergei, Denis Menshov distinguished himself three years ago. The absolute leader in the number of podium finishes is the current sports director of Katyusha Dmitry Konyshev - 4 titles (1990, 1991 - 2, 1999).

“It was difficult to break away; for a long time I could not catch up with the riders who attacked earlier. But in the end I managed to get into this group, which reached the finish line. There were many strong cyclists in the gap, but I knew that I had one chance,” the official Katyusha website quotes Ivanov as saying. “When the attacks started, I didn’t get nervous or twitch.” He waited for the right moment and gave out everything that was in his legs. I went 100 percent. I believed that I could win only 500 meters before the finish. I’m very happy, the victory was extremely difficult for me. Thank you very much to the team that supported me." Katyusha President Andrey Chmil noted that winning the stage was one of the priorities of our cycling group at the Tour.

In addition to the direct showdown for victory at the stage, the breakaway marked another important intrigue. Hincapie, who had the smallest gap among the fugitives from the leader of the general classification, Italian Rinaldo Nocentini, was the virtual owner of the yellow jersey a couple of kilometers before the end of the race. However, when the peloton finished in Besançon, it turned out that the American was only five seconds short of leading the overall standings.

Yesterday, the participants of the French multi-day race began traveling along mountainous Alpine roads, and everyone forgot about Hincapie’s local failure. The main favorite of the Tour, Alberto Contador from Astana, won the stage and naturally took the yellow tights from Nocentini. The Spaniard brought his titled teammate American Lance Armstrong more than one and a half minutes. Now the two Astana riders in front are separated by 1 minute. 37 sec. Briton Bradley Wiggins from Garmin-Slipstream took third position (1.46 deficit). The first number of “Katyusha” Vladimir Karpets closes the top 20 (5.56).

Ilya TRISVIATSKY