This Saturday morning took place the queen stage of the Tour Down Underwon by the Ecuadorian Jhonatan Narváez in the sprint. He got ahead of the line Oscar Onley (Team Picnic PostNL) et Finn Fisher-Black (Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe), and by a few seconds the Australian Lucas Plapp (Team Jayco AlUla). Plapp did not come far from victory. He attacked and accelerated several times on the final climb to Willunga, but he was unable to let go of the future stage winner and race leader, Jhonatan Narváez. Despite everything, he took the opportunity to climb to 6th place in the general classification, before the last stage this Sunday.
Video – Narvaez won at Wilunga Hill on the 5th stage
“I tried to liven up the race”
After the race, Lucas Plapp reacted to his performance today: “I had really good legs. I think I was probably the best climber today in terms of working up front, trying to liven up the race. I think it was a very tactical climb. I don't blame Narváez for the way he runs. He's the fastest and he has the sprint. I would have hoped that Onley and the others would race to take a little more time, given the tight gap. general, but I gave it my all. “I'm never going to beat these guys in a bonus sprint, so it was either going solo or trying to get as big a gap as possible.”.
The sports director of the Team Jayco-AlUla, Mat Haymanalso confided in CyclingNews: “We came with big plans, and we didn't achieve them, but we tried. We wanted to make the first climb as difficult as possible. It worked well. It put pressure on the other teams to They chase, and it caused a lot of chaos behind. Our main strategy was just to make the first climb really hard… and gradually take the riders out from the back. But in the end, they were riding so hard that they. left, and it more or less produced the same effect”.
