Team Sky rider Wouter Poels capped a thrilling solo attack with victory and the overall leader’s jersey after the fourth stage of the Tirreno-Adriatico on Saturday.
Poels, claiming his first win of the season, countered Italian Giampaolo Caruso after the Katusha rider tried to distance a small leading peloton on the final meters of the Crispiero climb, whose summit is 5km from the finish line.
The tall Dutchman went on to hold off a small group of chasers to cross the finish line solo and take the leader’s blue jersey from Belgian Greg van Avermaet of BMC Racing.
Photo: EPA
“It’s really unbelievable,” Poels told Italian television station Rai. “I had good legs, so it’s nice if you can attack like this and take the victory.”
Poels hit the finish line 14 seconds ahead of Rigoberto Uran, who sprinted ahead of a small group containing Joaquin Rodriguez, Alexis Vuillermoz and defending champion Alberto Contador, among others.
The pace of Vuillermoz and AG2R teammate Rinaldo Nocentini on the final kilometers of the Crispiero climb proved fatal to any hopes Van Avermaet had of holding on to the blue jersey for another day.
Their speed at the front left the Belgian trailing, before he finished more than two minutes behind Poels.
Poels made his move with just over 6km to race, leaving Caruso in his wake with ease after the Italian’s brief attempt to pull free.
Once over the crest of the climb, the Dutchman hit full gas on his way toward victory.
“It was perfect timing. I was looking a little bit at some of the big riders like Contador and [Vincenzo] Nibali, but I felt I had the legs and thought maybe I’d attack over the top of the climb. Then you only have to do the downhill. It worked pretty good,” Poels said.
One of the biggest losers on the day was Italian Nibali, who lost eight seconds to Contador in the race for overall victory after paying for his earlier efforts on the climb when he failed to follow the Spanish rider’s group at the finish.
Although Uran was second overall at 17 seconds behind Poels, Nibali, in ninth, and Contador, in 10th, are only 31 and 32 seconds off the leading pace ahead of yesterday’s key climbing stage which was due to begin in Esanatoglia and ends with a 16km ascent to the summit of Terminillo, Italy.
A sumo star was born in Japan on Sunday when 24-year-old Takerufuji became the first wrestler in 110 years to win a top-division tournament on his debut, triumphing at the 15-day Spring Grand Sumo Tournament in Osaka despite injuring his ankle on the penultimate day. Takerufuji, whose injury had left him in a wheelchair outside the ring, shoved out the higher-ranked Gonoyama at the Edion Arena Osaka to the delight of the crowd, giving him an unassailable record of 13 wins and two losses to claim the Emperor’s Cup. “I did it just through willpower. I didn’t really know what was going
The US’ Ilia Malinin on Saturday produced six scintillating quadruple jumps, including a quadruple Axel, in the men’s free skate to capture his first figure skating world title. The 19-year-old nicknamed the “Quad god,” who is the only skater to land a quadruple Axel in competition, dazzled with an array of breathtakingly executed jumps starting with his quad Axel and including a quadruple Lutz in combination with a triple flip and a quadruple toe loop in combination with a triple toe. He added an unexpected triple-triple combination at the end to earn a world-record 227.79 in the free program for a championship
Shohei Ohtani’s interpreter is being criminally investigated by the IRS, and the attorney for his alleged bookmaker said Thursday that the ex-Los Angeles Dodgers employee placed bets on international soccer — but not baseball. The IRS confirmed Thursday that interpreter Ippei Mizuhara and Mathew Bowyer, the alleged illegal bookmaker, are under criminal investigation through the agency’s Los Angeles Field Office. IRS Criminal Investigation spokesperson Scott Villiard said he could not provide additional details. Mizuhara, 39, was fired by the Dodgers on Wednesday following reports from the Los Angeles Times and ESPN about his alleged ties to an illegal bookmaker and debts well
MLB on Friday announced a formal investigation into the scandal swirling around Shohei Ohtani and his former interpreter amid charges that the Los Angeles Dodgers superstar was the victim of “massive theft.” The Dodgers on Wednesday fired Ippei Mizuhara, Ohtani’s long-time interpreter and close friend, after Ohtani’s representatives alleged that the Japanese two-way star had been the victim of theft, which was reported to involve millions of dollars and link Mizuhara to a suspected illegal bookmaker in California. “Major League Baseball has been gathering information since we learned about the allegations involving Shohei Ohtani and Ippei Mizuhara from the news media,” MLB