Reijnen snatch his stage triumph as Rosskopf seize his leader jersey in Tour of Rwanda 2011
Type 1 – Sanofi extend its domination at the Tour of Rwanda 2011 by keeping the leaders jersey and taking its fifth victory in 5 stages.
Kiel Reijnen again demonstrated his tremendous performance in the fifth stage and easily covered the distance of 140 kilometres 4 hours, 3 minutes and 27 seconds. His teammate Joey Rosskopf secured his yellow jersey.
After finishing the stage Reijnen told Cyclingnews, “I don’t understand MTN’s tactics. They could take the yellow jersey with Girdlestone but they didn’t want to do their turns, so I rode 40km by myself. Now my team is in a good position as we are two in
the two first places.”
After 29 kilometres to go, the six cyclists made breakaway lead and took a benefit of few seconds. There were: Gasore Hategeka (Rwanda Karisimbi), Richard Laizer (Tanzania National), Dylan Girdlestone (MTN Qhubeka), Adrien Niyonshuti (MTN Qhubeka), Nicodem
Habiyambere (Rwanda Karisimbi) and Kbrom Giday (Ethiopia National).
Hategeka took the first mountain standing with 15 points but after few kilometres, Jacques Janse Van Rensburg initiated attack and achieved a lead in the next three sprints. However, in the last mountain course, Ethiopia National team control the situation
and Weldemikael Weyo took a lead ahead of other cyclists.
Rejinen persistent his effort and crossed the closing line by simply beating the two cyclists Dylan Girdlestone (Team MTN Qhubeka) and Nathan Byukusenge (Rwanda Karisimbi).
Weldemikael Weyo ended fourth with a difference of 6 seconds while Antonin Azam (Rhone Alpes) was in fifth place with 2 minutes and 24 seconds behind American.
Nicodem Habiyambere (Rwanda Karisimbi), Tedros Redae (Ethiopia National) and Aléxis Chenevier (Rhone Alpes) were in seventh, eighth and ninth place respectively.
Rosskopf maintained his overall lead with a timing of 11 hours, 45 minutes and 31 second and Kiel Reijnen was in runner-up’s spot with a difference of 4 seconds.
Dylan Girdlestone put third place with 28 second adrift ahead of Nathan Byukusenge (Rwanda Karisimbi) and Gasore Hategeka.
MTN Qhubeka team’s Adrien Niyonshuti took the overall mountain standing with 76 points ahead of Hategeka and Girdlestone.
The next stage will start in Gitarama and end in Butare, where all the riders will cover the distance of 80km.
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