29.05.2015
Martin Laas won for Estonia in the Tour of Estonia 1st stageTour of Estonia started today with a 197,8km stage from Tallinn to Tartu. Young Estonian team managed to win the stage with Martin Laas in the forefront. Laas became also the overall leader of Tour of Estonia. Decider was the 6km long gravel road part in the last third of the race where over 20 riders had puncture. Estonian team also lost two good riders – Mihkel Räim and Risto Raid had puncture and couldn’t stay in the peloton.
„After the gravel road part it all went crazy,“ said the winner Martin Laas. „Many times people tried to get away from the main group but couldn’t. Finally eight men managed to pull of and me with them. I was not in a very good postition in the last 500 metres but when I pushed the pedal others had no answer.“
Estonian national team will defend the leader yersey tomorrow with Martin Laas. Additonally Laas took the best young rider jersey and the best sprinter yersey.
Ioannis Tamouridis (Synergy Baky Cycling Team) was second and Gustav Höög (National team of Sweden) was third. Overall Laas leads with a 5 second lead from Tamouridis and is 8 seconds ahead of Höög. A total of 10 riders fit in the first 20 seconds. Main group is over a minute behind.
Tomorrow is the second and last stage of Tour of Estonia – Tartu GP which is a 150km race in the streets of Tartu. |