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Amgen Tour of California. Stage 5. Truls Korsaeth in the breakaway of the day
Queen stage of Tour of California finished today in Mt. Baldy after 125.5 km of racing in high mountains.
Important day for the GC riders was started with the early breakaway of 15 riders, including our Truls Korsaeth that was caught up by the peloton at the last climb.
- I have spent more than 90 km at the breakaway, but the final climb was too hard for me, I was really suffered there and feel myself completely empty. But I’m satisfied with my day; it was a good stage and good experience for me - really hard, but very nice day. And the spectators were fantastic, it is amazing how many people were today during the course, - said Truls Korsaeth just after the finish.
Unfortunately, Italian sprinter of Kazakh team Riccardo Minali didn’t finished this hard stage within the time limit and will not start tomorrow’s stage.
- Short, but very demanding stage. Last climb was 40 km long. Today we had guys free to do what they want to do and they actually tried from the start to go to the breakaway and we had three riders in the first breakaway. There were Matti Breshchel, Atryom Zakharov and Truls Korsaeth, but at the first climb some riders from the big group were dropped and at the top of first climb there were only 15 riders, including our Korsaeth, doing a great part of today’s stage. Truls is not a climber and he weights more than 83 kilos and the last climb was it’s too heavy for him, - commented sports director Lars Michaelsen.
Stage ended with uphill finish on 2000 meters above the sea, which was won by American Andrew Talansky, finished just ahead of the leader of the GC Rafal Majka.
