Pinot wins Tour of Romandie mountain stage; Zakarin leads
The winner of the stage, Thibaut Pinot from France of team FDJ, celebrates as he crosses the finish line during the fifth stage, a 162,7 km race between Fribourg and Champex-Lac, at the 69th Tour de Romandie UCI ProTour cycling race, in Champex-Lac. Thibaut Pinot of France won the mountainous fifth stage at the Tour of Romandie on Saturday, finishing alone ahead of Ilnur Zakarin of Russia who leads overall.
Pinot broke clear with around 5 kilometers (3 miles) left in a 163-kilometer (101-mile) trek from Fribourg to Champex-Lac, and was seven seconds clear at the line of Zakarin, riding for the Katusha team.
Zakarin\’s late effort preserved a six-second lead on Francaise des Jeux rider Pinot in the overall standings ahead of Sunday\’s race-closing time trial.
Romain Bardet of France was third, 20 seconds behind Pinot, heading a small group containing Chris Froome of Britain, the 2013 Tour de France winner, and Colombian Nairo Quintana, the 2014 Giro d\’Italia winner.
Froome, the two-time defending Romandie champion, is 14 seconds back overall in third place. He starts favorite for overall victory on Sunday on a 17-kilometer (11-mile) route around Lausanne.
Quintana is fifth, with 40 seconds to make up on time trial specialist Froome.
Vincenzo Nibali of Italy, the Tour de France titleholder, lost time on Froome by placing ninth on Saturday, and has 50 seconds to make up on Froome.
Zakarin is a former European junior time trial champion. In 2009, he was banned for two years by the Russian cycling federation after testing positive for a steroid.
SOURCE: AP
The Times of Earth ( TOE) founded in 1999, is a multilingual newspaper that is printed and circulated in many countries including some parts of the United States and Canada. It is considered as the largest trusted & respected international multimedia news/financial information source of the world.