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Tour de l'Aude 2010

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Stage 1 -Lizzie Armitstead sprints to victory

Rieux Minervois, 117km

Lizzie Armitstead (Cervelo Test Team) won stage 1 and takes over the leader jersey. Armitstead scored the second victory in a row for Cervélo TestTeam at the Tour de l'Aude. The 21-year-old rider from Great Britain finished first in today's 117 km race first stage around Rieux Minervois, France, taking over the leader jersey from her teammate Regina Bruins. Armitstead secured victory in the sprint ahead of Chantal Blaak (Leontien.nl) and Adrie Visser (HTC Columbia). 

The wind played a big role today, enabling 11 riders to go into a break away, after 26.9 km. The group which included Armitstead, and representation from HTC Columbia's Adrie Visser, Romy Kasper, Noris Cycling, Tibco had two representatives, Emma Mackie and Brooke Miller, Loes Gunnewijk (Nederland Bloiet), Petra Dijkman (RedSun), Martine Bras (Gauss-RDZ-Ormu). 

The main group did not react to the break however a couple of riders did decide to bridge the gap to the leaders.  Katheryn Mattis (the USA) and Béatrice Thomas (Esgl 93 - Gsd Gestion) worked hard, despite the strong winds to join the group. With 55km of racing completed the leaders had a gap of 5 minutes 40 seconds. 

There were a number of sprint points on offer during the stage and the American champion Brooke Miller was dominant. With 20km to go the leaders had a 3 minute 30 second lead. Marianne Vos (Netherland Bloiet) had bridged to the leaders but the remaining peloton were way off the pace. In the final 1km, the leaders still had a 1 minute 45 second lead. Mattis tried to attack the lead group twice but did not succeed. Dijkman then tried to attack but could not get away. 

The sprint to the line started 500m out and it was Armitstead who showed that she had enough left in the tank. The main peloton finished 1 minute 16 seconds back.  

Egon van Kessel (Sport Director Cervelo) was very happy with his team's performance, "Another victory and another leader jersey today, that is just amazing," exclaimed van Kessel. "In this first stage, a breakaway of eleven riders including Lizzie Armitstead broke away coming to the finish with an advantage of about 1:20 over the peloton. Lizzie did a great job and won the sprint. We totally fulfilled our goal and didn't lose too much energy in defending the leader's jersey. Tomorrow we will race in the team time trial, and we go into that with full confidence. We have trained this race format a lot and I believe we can make it on the podium."

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