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Tour de Taiwan stage 4: special Drapac rider report

Action from the 2013 Tour of Taiwan (Image: Aaron Lee, Impressions Studio)
Roar Guru
21st March, 2013
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On paper, stage four of the 2013 Tour de Taiwan looked to be a fairly innocuous day’s racing but turned out to be bountiful for the Drapac team and for leader Bernard Sulzberger in particular.

Sitting just one second down on the general classification at the start of the day, Sulzberger took a flier on the stage yesterday to get away with teammate Floris Goesinnen and a handful of other riders to claim a 28 second lead over his nearest rival for the race lead.

Below is a special report by Drapac rider Thomas Palmer.

Sulzberger got on the podium again and rides into yellow thanks to a huge ride from the team.

The day started off well, with a big split on an early climb and we were well situated with Robbie Hucker as the tour leader on the road. That break wasn’t allowed by the other teams but the next split was instigated by Floris and Gordon McCauley riding away with a small group.

At the major climb with 45km to go, the trap was set and a massive effort from Bernie got him across to the group we already had two riders in.

The epic chase had then begun and the front riders managed to hold off the chasing bunch and stay away by a slim 20 seconds.

That amount was enough to slide Bernie into the yellow, but there are three tough stages remaining.

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After the stage, Sulzberger had this to say:

“The day could not have worked out any better with the two up the road, Gordon out the front and Floris in the middle letting me jump to him and then ride across to the front group. We could not have planned it any better.”

Our manager, Jonathan Breekveldt, was also satisfied with the effort we put in:

“Tactically the team was perfect today as they executed a predetermined plan precisely and it paid dividends. Having won the Tour de Taiwan last year, there was always added pressure to perform this year and the team have responded very well.

“There is still plenty of racing ahead of us and we have already seen how aggressive and difficult it is to defend in this year’s race but we are confident in Bernard and the team that we can hold the jersey through to Taipei”

The task is now in our hands to defend. I’ve been saying all week that between the five of us we have the resources we need.

There are a lot of kilometres and a few good climbs to go and some strong teams close behind us ready to take those opportunities.

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Things have gone well enough so far and we’re in a great position at the tour’s halfway point. Morale is high but we have some hard work ahead of us.

Stage five is a 144km race with two tough little climbs through the city of Taoyuan, just south of Taipei.

Images courtesy of Tour de Taiwan

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