06 Feb 2021

Ganna solos to Besseges stage win

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Filippo Ganna

Etoile de Bessèges - Tour du Gard - Stage 4 » Rousson › Saint-Siffret, 152km

Filippo Ganna stormed to victory on stage four at Etoile de Bessèges as the Grenadiers picked up their first victory of 2021.

Part of the day's five-man breakaway, the Italian demonstrated his time trial prowess late on as the peloton were bearing down.

With a slender 20-second gap the situation looked bleak, but the world time trial champion timed his move perfectly, pushing on solo and quickly extending out his advantage to win by 17 seconds.

Finishing in the peloton, Michal Kwiatkowski was also able to hold on to fourth place overall ahead of the final-day time trial.

Reaction

- Filippo Ganna

“The objective today was to stay close to Kwiato and help him. We saw there was a moment for a chance to go in the breakaway and Kwiato said okay without a problem. I kept the motivation to arrive to the finish and in the final 10km I could go solo. At the finish I was really happy.

“Obviously every race is different. Today was a fantastic day. The legs felt really nice and we’ll see tomorrow if I can ride like I did today.

“In the GC we are three minutes off. It’s okay for me. Today the stage went really well. In the future we’ll see in the next races if I can arrive closer to the GC. For the moment I want to finish the race well tomorrow. If we see there is a race more to my characteristics, more flat with less climbs, I can try to arrive also on the GC.”