Polti Kometa’s forcing and 2nd place for Restrepo in Tour du Rwanda 4th stage
Another day, another tight sprint. At Ruvabu, Jhonatan Restrepo, dressed in the red jersey as yesterday’s stage-winner, places second in the 4th stage of the Tour du Rwanda, the densest stage of the African race with 5 KOM in 93 kilometers in the northwest of the country.
It was the day of solo attacks: on the first climb Froome tried in vain, on the second Latour went away, on the fourth the young Rolland countered and passed the compatriot and nurtured dreams of glory. However, the forcing conducted by Team Polti Kometa on the final ramps was successful, and a small group presented itself in the last two kilometers to contend for the prize. William Lecerf wins, with Soudal Devo celebrating also the temporary yellow jersey of Reinderink halfway through this Tour. But the Colombian from Polti Kometa is always there, and tomorrow there are 13 kilometers of time trial where he can have fun and entertain us…
And here are Restrepo‘s words: “Andrea Garosio pulled very hard on the last climb, German Gomez stretched to complete the selection and, once the fugitive was caught, I went for the sprint even though unfortunately I lacked a bit of decision. I let myself get boxed in and reacted late, but I still managed to come back to 2nd place and I’m happy because the legs are good and the team is working brilliantly.”
This opinion is shared by the sports director Biagio Conte: “Since this morning we’ve been racing with four men and we would have liked to dedicate a victory to Javi Serrano, who luckily didn’t have major problems and only needs to recover from the crash that forced him to retire. Today’s route was short but concentrated two thousand meters of elevation gain and the guys were excellent. Yesterday’s challenging stage led Manuel Peñalver to detach on the initial difficulties today, but he’s performing well and there will be other opportunities for him. Now we have a ITT where we expect good things especially from Restrepo and Gomez.”