Tour of Oman (6th stage), Amaury Capiot 3rd, Arkéa-Samsic 1st by team
Two new podiums were awarded to the Arkéa-Samsic team at the end of the Tour of Oman. Amaury Capiot was 3rd in the sprint on the 6th and last stage. The team classification also went to our team.
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On the line
“Another sprint finish today, but this time it was hard. In the last 30-40 kilometres, the DSM team was careful with the bumps, the tempo was high. But the five of us were at the front, whereas the peloton had only 25 to 30 riders left. A second group joined us in the last 25 kilometres, and with four kilometres to go, we had to be at the front because there was a small slope at the end. I was well placed at that moment but a crash happened in front of me, fortunately I wasn’t caught in it. But my chain broke, so I lost some places. This forced me to make an effort to come back. I was between 30th and 35th position with two kilometres to go, and I also took a lot of wind to come back to top 5-6 to get back in, and then I took the suction from the others in front of me to make another podium. Not bad, I am now on eight races with four podiums and one victory. The feeling is not bad. I am satisfied”.
“The team classification is a nice reward, we came here to achieve a good overall classification with Elie. He finished 4th overall; the revelation of this event was Kévin Vauquelin, 6th in the same ranking. If we had known his abilities before this race, maybe he could have done even better. Amaury confirms his rank, and gets closer and closer to the big sprinters. The team classification we obtained reflects the spirit of the five riders present in Oman. We all worked for Amaury in the sprints and for Elijah and Kevin in the summit finishes. Kévin really showed up on the Muscat stage, and yesterday on Green Mountain we told him to do “his” climb as close as possible to Élie. And I think he discovered himself, and at the same time showed us some great climbing skills on this race. I also remember the good mood of the team during this Tour of Oman, we all pulled together and it worked for all of us”.
The debrief
“Amaury I think came here to win, he is not far away with a good bunch of sprinters in Oman. He took two 3rd places, he was in the game. He didn’t really have an opening. The efforts here allowed him to prepare well for the Belgian classics. Kévin is the revelation of the week, we are discovering him and we don’t know his limits. He has good qualities as a rouleur, climber and can lead sprints. I think that Élie had the 2nd place in his legs, but his heat stroke deprived him of it. In any case, he showed his physical strength. He was in the game and finished 4th, only two seconds from the podium. The team ranking is a reward for our week here. It proves that the team involved in Oman was strong, which was not the objective, and we started to think about it yesterday morning. We’re seven seconds ahead of Intermarché-Wanty ».