The Frenchman Thibaut Pinot (Groupama – FDJ) has a double win beaten in the third and final stage of the Tour of the Ain (Fra/2.1). With a solozege on the top of the Col du Grand Colombier and took also the overall victory.
The run of a hundred miles to the Grand Colombier was colored by an early flight of six riders, with among others the Belgian rider Xandro Meurisse. That their maximumvoorsprong of three minutes would not suffice for the dagzege, was written in the stars: the final climb was almost eighteen miles long.
On that Grand-Colombier threw Pinot everyone and everything from the wheel, including race leader Alexandre Geniez, who him on Saturday of the victory and the leader’s jersey was held in the second stage. The line had Pinot 52 seconds ahead of his compatriot Elie Gesbert, and the Russian Aleksey Rybalkin.
In the standings, occupy the Swiss Mathias Frank (second at 1:08) and the Est Rein Taaramae (third in 1:25) places two and three. The 28-year-old Pinot, last year in the Giro, preparing for the Tour de France. Earlier this season he won also the final stage and the overall classification of the Tour of the Haut-Var. (belga)
