Written by HC Alpine at 15:50 16/7-2012
Team Hc Alpine just completed its first ever Volta ao Porto. The 2nd largest tour in OCM and longest in division 2 is a grueling 10 stages. It consists of 3 TT, 4 Sp stages and 3 climbing stages.
The team entered without lead out Sherard Hutchcraft due to an injury, which was worrying but not devastating.
Spiridon struggled on the opening prologue finishing 36th, something he was expected to place relatively high in. He then came a dismal 15th in the first sprinting stage, "Porto - Viana do Castelo". The next day was a tough day for the climbers and Spiridon opted to conserve energy, finishing well back at 65th.
Porto - Aveiro is where everything turned around. A tough mans sprint is exactly what Spiridon needed and he had marked this stage on his calender. Joos Lahaye managed to set up Spiridon in the top 3 riders with 1km to go. Joos then crashed out around the 800M mark when a rider clipped his back wheel as he pulled off the front. Cary Shutts gave the perfect leadout and Spiridon won by 2 bike lengths. An amazing victory, and therefore secured 1 of the teams goals for the tour!
Stage 5 was a 47km TT and once again Spiridon did not over exert himself, hoping to save some energy for the tough upcoming days. Gilian De Schutter of Blast took the victory.
The next 2 days were by far the toughest with the King stage and another unbelievable climing stage. Spiridon paced himself nicely with the help of Arvel Wardell and managed to actually finish 23rd and 19th, moving him well up the GC ladder.
Once out of the mountains the next 3 days were relatively flat and hilly, with 2 more sprints and a 23km TT. A disappointing 10th in Vinhais - Vinhais saw Apetri raise his efforts for following days TT, which he then finished in 17th; a few minutes back from winner Kasper Czechowski of Greenride. It seemed with this last ditched effort, Spridion could place in the top 20 for GC, something completely unexpected!
The last day was the parade, a flat, straight sprint to the line. Chaos filled the Peleton as GC teams and Sprint teams wanted control at the front. In the end EpoTop Team broke Arfan Hussain away in the last 1km due to a small crash which gave him the victory and overall win in the points classification. Marius Lassen, Stanislav Uitsky and Spiridon Apetri all fought till the line finishing in that order 2nd, 3rd and 4th.
Overall: Damario Crusellas of The Doomsday Bunnies won GC, followed by Gualtar Matos in second (YR Winner) and veteran Chris Bauwens in third. Spiridon Apetri managed to secure an impressive 20th overall for a sprinter, 14:43 down.
More importantly he snuck into 3rd on the last sprint day for the Sprinters Classification, rounding out the podium behind Afran and the Russian Stanislav.
It was our first major tour outside of the Monte Rosa Tour and team manager Anthony Leutenegger couldn't be more proud of his team. Through injuries and mechanical problems the team secured a stage win and 3rd overall in the sprint classification. Hc Alpine is now ranked 65th in the world and still 1st in Canada and they can't wait for the next tour.
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Comments
Nice PR. Spiridon is a real winner type. Good decision to buy him. Hope to see you in next Volta again :) cheers!
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