Tour de Picardie

Tour de Picardie
Stage 3:  Crépy-en-Valois to  Sissonne 174km/108mi
By Cathy Mehl
  Racing in the Tour de Picardy came to a close today with Frenchman Jimmy Casper (Saur-Sojasun) taking the final sprint win in front of Koldo Fernandez (Euskaltel-Euskadi) and Danilo Napolitano (Katusha).    The overall win went to Ben Swift in the first general classification win this season for Team Sky.  Rounding out the podium were Fernandez and Allan Davis (Astana).  The best-placed rider for Team RadioShack was Gert Steegmans on both today’s stage and the overall.

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.
“The good news is that we have no injuries,” explained a philosophical Team Director Alain Gallopin.  “But the bad news is that Beppu lost his third place position on the general classification.”

Tour de Picardie
Stage 1: Boué to  Doullens, 181 km/112mi
By Cathy Mehl


While Lance Armstrong and Levi Leipheimer line up with teammates in the Amgen Tour of California, another part of Team RadioShack is racing in France and putting on a good show to boot.  Team rider Fumy Beppu put himself in the day-long break with two other riders, managing to work well together all day to build an advantage of ten minutes.  The trio almost managed to hold off the peloton but the ambitions of the teams of the sprinters were strong andonce they organized themselves, the catch was made with only 2km to go.  The group sprint win went to Dutchman  Kenny van Hummel (Skil), followed by Ben Swift of Sky and Danilo Napilitano (Katusha).

The Team line-up for the next race:

Tour de Picardie (France), May 14-16, 2010

Riders: Fumiyuki Beppu, Sam Bewley, Daryl Impey, Gregory Rast, Sébastien Rosseler, Bjørn Selander, Gert Steegmans & Tomas Vaitkus
Director: Alain Gallopin