Australian Baden Cooke was finally given a chance to look beyond the road rash and painful legs after Saxo Bank teammate Juan Jose Haedo scored a superb sprint win at the Dauphine Criterium on Tuesday.
Cooke, racing in this key Tour de France warm-up despite not competing in next month’s three-week epic, was one of several riders caught up in the numerous crashes that marred Monday’s opening stage.
And the bruising and pain only intensified on Tuesday as the peloton launched an ultimately successful pursuit of a five-man breakaway in difficult wind conditions that Haedo ultimately put to good use.
PHOTO: AFP
FAST MAN
The fast man from Argentina is known to relish difficult conditions despite not benefiting from the type of sprint lead-out “train” used by British sprint specialist Mark Cavendish at HTC-Columbia.
And when it came down to a bunch finish, Haedo’s bike handling skills allowed him to find the tightest of gaps before cruising over the finish line ahead of German Martin Reimer of Cervelo.
“You have to be flexible, but you also need a fair bit of luck and today I found that little gap to go through and so I had some of that,” Haedo said.
“But the team worked hard to keep me protected for the second day in a row, and so I have to say a big thank you to them,” he said.
WORTH IT
For Cooke, who came into the race without top form having “only” raced 12 days at last month’s Giro d’Italia and suffering after a tough first day of racing Monday, Haedo’s win made it all worth it.
“Today I really felt it,” Cooke said. “The plan was always to try and set JJ [Juan Jose] up for the win, but we really had to put up a fight.”
“I was trying to keep JJ out of the wind all day and in the end the headwind proved to be in our favor, but we were getting anxious. He showed today that, if you get the timing right, you can win a sprint in a headwind,” he said.
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