Tour de Picardie

Stage 2: Friville-Escarbotin-Belloy to Cires-lès-Mello, 186 km/116mi

By Cathy Mehl and Philippe Maertens

After yesterday’s good effort by Team RadioShack’s Fumy Beppu, the cycling gods were not so generous on stage two in the Tour de Picardie.  With just over 3km to go, a massive crash occurred in the peloton, taking down Beppu and teammates Gregory Rast and Tomas Vaitkus.  Other team riders had to put their feet on the ground and lost time.

Victory went to British rider Ben Swift of Team Sky.   Swift beat Allan Davis (Astana) and his teammate Russel Downing in an all-out sprint.  Afterwards Swift acknowledged that Davis was faster, but because of a derailleur problem Swift involuntarily went into Davis, which hindered his progress.  An apology was quick in coming to settle the matter between the sprinters.  Swift wears the yellow jersey on the general classification.

“It was a harder stage today,” said team rider Sam Bewley.  “It was 185km up and down and more wind.  I started to pull with couple of the guys at 25km to go to get the break back for the sprint.  Unfortunately a crash at 4km to go took down a few of the guys.  It was uphill to finish so that was end of it.  One more day to give it another nudge!”  Sunday’s final stage is 174km from Crépy-en-Valois to Sissonne.

Top Ten Results

1              Ben Swift (GBr) Sky Professional Cycling Team  4:08:30                   

2              Allan Davis (Aus) Astana                                

3              Russell Downing (GBr) Sky Professional Cycling Team                       

4              Mikhaylo Khalilov (Ukr) Team Katusha                    

5              Alexandre Pichot (Fra) Bbox Bouygues Telecom                                 

6              David De La Fuente Rasilla (Spa) Astana                                  

7              Koldo Fernandez (Spa) Euskaltel - Euskadi                             

8              Michael Van Stayen (Bel) Topsport Vlaanderen-Mercator                              

9              Borut Bozic (Slo) Vacansoleil Pro Cycling Team                     

10           Jose Joaquin Rojas Gil (Spa) Caisse d'Epargne

Team RadioShack Results

55           Gert Steegmans (Bel)    0:00:29                   

56           Sébastien Rosseler (Bel)   0:00:31

96           Grégory Rast (Swi)   0:01:25        

112         Bjorn Selander (USA)     0:02:42

119         Tomas Vaitkus (Ltu)  0:04:04

123         Daryl Impey (RSA)   0:05:37           

124         Sam Bewley (NZl)

126         Fumiyuki Beppu (Jpn)

General Classification after Stage 2

1              Ben Swift (GBr) Sky Professional Cycling Team  8:24:19                   

2              Allan Davis (Aus) Astana               0:00:10  

3              Russell Downing (GBr) Sky Professional Cycling Team      0:00:12  

4              Michael Van Stayen (Bel) Topsport Vlaanderen-Mercator             0:00:16  

5              Borut Bozic (Slo) Vacansoleil Pro Cycling Team                     

6              Koldo Fernandez (Spa) Euskaltel - Euskadi                             

7              Alexandre Pichot (Fra) Bbox Bouygues Telecom                                 

8              David De La Fuente Rasilla (Spa) Astana                                  

9              Mikhaylo Khalilov (Ukr) Team Katusha                    

10            Kenny Robert Van Hummel (Ned) Skil-Shimano                 0:00:21

Team RadioShack on General Classification

 55          Gert Steegmans (Bel)  0:00:45

60           Sébastien Rosseler (Bel) 0:00:47

94           Gregory Rast (Swi)  0:01:41

106          Bjorn Selander (USA)     0:02:58

117          Tomas Vaitkus (Ltu)   0:04:29 

122          Fumiyuki Beppu (Jpn)   0:05:47  

126          Daryl Impey (RSA)  0:05:53                            

127          Sam Bewley (NZl)