Team News: Kennaugh attacks Quebec Race

Peter Kennaugh BORA – hansgrohe tries for a solo victory and is caught within sight of the line in the Grand Prix Cycliste de Québec

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Team News: Kennaugh attacks Quebec Race

Peter Kennaugh’s team, BORA – hansgrohe, took to the start line at the first of two races in Canada. The 9th edition of the Grand Prix Cycliste de Québec, a race reminiscent of the classics, was led by a five-man breakaway for much of the day, which, however was ultimately caught. With around 25km remaining to the finish, the Isle of Man’s Peter Kennaugh launched a spirited attack and subsequently led the race solo for the last lap.

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In the end, he was caught in the finishing straight and the race came down to an action-packed mass sprint, in which Michael Matthews proved himself to be the fastest. The highest-placed BORA – hansgrohe rider was Patrick Konrad, who took out fifth place.

The Route
The Canadian one-day race took the riders on a circuit through the city of Québec over almost 3000 metres of elevation. With 16 rounds of 12.6km each, the course was a total of 201.6km in length. On each lap, the riders had to complete three ascents. After 9km, they reached the first climb of the Côte de la Montagne (335m, 10%), followed by the Côte de la Potasse (420m, 9%) and Montée de la Fabrique (190m, 7%).

After approximately 11km of racing, the long and drawn out ascent towards the finish commenced, which had an average gradient of 4%. In addition, the final 1.5km contained a few tight corners, which also made for a relatively difficult uphill finish. With its rather hilly parcours of over 200km in length, today’s race and its circuit format provided a good test of form just a few weeks ahead of the road World Championships.
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The last few editions of the race have generally been decided in a mass sprint, and so it could therefore be expected that today’s race would once again come down to a sprint from a larger group. However, the possibility always remained that attacks on the last few laps could come thick and fast, and so tactics and teamwork would play a particularly pronounced role today.
BORA – hansgrohe had several options today. The riders could support Sam Bennett for an eventual sprint finish, or launch an attack in the last few laps. In any event, the team wanted to animate the race. Nevertheless, with several top favourites lining up to take the start line today, it had to prepare itself to race against some stiff competition.

Peter Kennaugh also took home the mountains classification.

Kennaugh: “On the penultimate lap, I launched an attack with a few other riders and I managed to bridge the gap to the leading group. I didn’t think I had a very strong chance against riders like Matthews and Van Avermaet in the sprint, so I decided to put in a solo attack. I was actually a bit surprised how long I lasted at the front of the race. But this also shows me that I have good legs and that gives me confidence for the race on Sunday. We pulled off some good teamwork today. Christoph [Pfingsten] and Felix [Großschartner] supported me the whole day and in the end Patrick [Konrad] took fifth place, which is a solid achievement.”

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