Edvald Boasson Hagen proved that it is always better to do your homework thoroughly as he ended a six-year wait for another Tour de France stage victory on Friday.
The versatile Norwegian, riding for the African-based Team Dimension Data, was part of a nine-man lead group speeding toward a roundabout 2.5km from the finish line of the 222km trek from Embrun on Stage 19.
While seven of them veered left, the long way round, Boasson Hagen and Team Sunweb’s Nikias Arndt swerved to the right, catapulting themselves clear of their pursuers.
Photo: AFP
Boasson Hagen, a class act who won two stages for Team Sky in 2011, but who this year endured two runners-up finishes and two third places, then outclassed Arndt to take the victory by a comfortable 5 seconds.
“This morning we watched a video of the finale and we were instructed to be on the right side,” said the 30-year-old, who lost a photo-finish to Marcel Kittel on Stage 7. “It was shorter. Everyone else went on the left, except Nikias Arndt. It was the right moment to go.”
“I had studied the course and I knew I had to go right in that last roundabout. Afterwards, I managed to go solo and I was so happy when I crossed the line. I’ve been so close so many times. It’s really nice to finally get this victory for the team and for myself as well,” he said.
It was a joyous moment, too, for team boss Douglas Ryder, whose outfit uses its Tour income to provide bicycles for Africans in rural areas.
With the team’s sprint king Mark Cavendish crashing out early in the Tour, it looked as though Dimension Data would not have the stage win that does so much for the Qhubeka charity, which it promotes and supports.
Ryder could hardly contain himself at the finish in Salon-de-Provence and was full of praise for Boasson Hagen.
“An amazing way to win it,” he said. “We plan for every meter of the end of these stages and we knew he had to go around the roundabout to the right. We gained 10m, but Edvald still had to have the power to finish it off.”
Cavendish, who was watching at home with a fractured shoulder, joined in the celebrations for his teammate, who is so often the unsung hero in the Manxman’s sprint victories.
“Yesssssssssss!!!!!! Edvald!!!!!! Finally!!” he said on Twitter. “I’m in tears. You absolute hero!”
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier