Rabon Wins 2010 Vuelta a Murcia; Theo Bos Wins Final Stage

News & Results

03/7/2010| 0 comments
by Gerald Churchill

Rabon Wins 2010 Vuelta a Murcia; Theo Bos Wins Final Stage

Team Columbia-HTC's Frantisek Rabon has clinched the overall victory of the 2010 Tour of Murcia. Cervelo TestTeam's Theo Bos won the final stage.

30th Murcia Cycling Tour

Team Columbia-HTC's Frantisek Rabon has clinched the overall victory of the 2010 Tour of Murcia, following a trouble-free final stage earlier today.

Rabon had taken the lead thanks to his spectacular time trial victory on Saturday. HTC-Columbia then kept the race well under control in the 124 kilometer stage from Redyser to Murcia, won by Cervelo TestTeam's Theo Bos in stunningly powerful fashion.

"There was one second category climb in the stage of today and I had to pass that one," Theo Bos after the stage finish. Bos added "As we expected Rabobank set the tempo in the front but my teammates stayed around me providing perfect support. It was really a fast final and that is really good for me. Brown was in my wheel and I knew that I had to watch him. With 300 meters to go I opened the sprint and saw Brown coming out of my wheel. When he tried to pass me I accelerated and he was not able to pass me and came back in my wheel. The team did a great job for me today. Philip Deignan was in the breakaway and that was perfect for us because Rabobank had to chase him. Stefan Denifl stayed with me in the final and brought me into a perfect position. Today I had my best legs of the week and I felt a big change today. The first stage I messed up a little bit because I was too far back in the peloton in an important moment in the race so I wanted to make something good today, and I did."

The win in the five-day Tour of Murcia is Frantisek Rabon's first ever stage race victory as a professional, and the 26-year-old took it with a 38 second advantage over Team Rabobank's Denis Menchov, second overall, and a 53 second on third-placed British rider Bradley Wiggins of Team Sky.

"The first 40 kilometers of the final stage, before the one big climb of the day, were a bit crazy with attacks going everywhere. But afterwards we kept it all under control," Team HTC-Columbia's sports director for the race, Tristan Hoffman commented.

Czech cyclist Frantisek Rabon

"At one point there was a break of nine riders, with one of them a potential threat because he was less than three minutes behind Frankie [Rabon] on the overall. Fortunately, he dropped out of the break and we combined with the sprinters' teams to close things down."

"Frankie's always been a great time triallist, but now he's getting much better on the climbs, too, so we weren't too worried."

The HTC-Columbia sports director stressed that "All the young guys on our team were really nervous, but also really motivated about keeping the breaks under control. What we had to do we did well."

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