Lac de Payolle (France) (AFP) – Stephen Cummings said new-found confidence was behind the Indian summer to his career after claiming his second Tour de France stage victory on Friday.
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The Dimension Data rider told reporters that he was pleased to have bagged a stage, joining his team mate and “legend” Mark Cavendish who has won three sprint stages so far.
Stage five victor Greg van Avermaet remains in the yellow jersey after a fifth-place finish saw him increase his lead atop of the general classification to six minutes and 36 seconds over Julian Alaphilippe.
Yates had earlier attacked out of the peloton and was a handful of seconds in front of favourites such as Chris Froome and Nairo Quintana when he collided with the stricken bridge.
Yates lost considerable ground but he and the other riders in the bunch who were slowed down should not lose any time, said race director Thierry Gouvenou.
However, it was Cummings who attacked first on the Aspin and he rode solo over the summit and maintained a comfortable lead on the ensuing high-speed descent and slight rise to the finish in Lac de Payolle. The idea was that Navarro will cook himself before the climb, so I put pressure on Astana to chase behind.
“Dimension Data have given me the freedom, the support and the belief – it’s kind of spiralled”.
“Of all my victories, I think it’s the best one”, Cummings was quoted as saying by The Telegraph. His bike was on top of the deflated arch, but eventually the pair were reunited, and Yates pedalled painfully across the finish line. “It’s not about being 40 minutes down and given the freedom to go, you go full gas for the first hour and hope that teams blow up or that teams can’t control it. I got in the break twice previous year and the first hour and a half it was [aerobic] threshold efforts”. “The whole reason I was up there was to try to get the jersey, and I’d like to thank the organisation for sorting it out”.
Culture: The Pyrenees are part of Tour de France lore but the most popular sport in the Midi-Pyrenees region is rugby, which is like a religion in many villages.
“It was quite a surprise to come around the last corner and see Yates on the floor”, Froome said.
Yates underlined that his main goal is winning one of the mountain stages not the yellow jersey.
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There was late drama when an inflatable arch indicating the final kilometer collapsed and knocked young Briton Adam Yates off his bike, leaving him with a bloodied chin.
