Final day’s stage win gives Downing the edge over Marcato
Russel Downing of the British Sky team has won the overall classification of the Tour of Wallonia (July 24-28). In each of the five stages the stage winner also took the yellow leader’s jersey, with Downing doing the smart move of winning the final stage, from Chaudfontaine to Lontzen over 165km. Downing outsprinted Stefan Van Dijk (Verandas Willems), who held the yellow jersey after stage two, and Tony Gallopin (Cofidis).
Downing went from an eight-second deficit in fifth place to take the overall win with his bunch sprint win on the final day. Marco Marcato ended in second place overall, Laurent Mangel in third. After the race sports director Steven de Jongh said that “it’s a super result and we couldn’t have asked for any more.”
The result was Downing’s second victory of the season and came despite only three Team Sky riders completing the race.
“It was unfortunate to see Kurt [-Asle Arvesen] have to pull out at the start of the day but we’re absolutely delighted with the way things turned out with Russell,” de Jongh said. “He trained really hard in the weeks leading up to the race and this is his reward. Hopefully now he will go from strength-to-strength in the weeks to come.”
The first stage was won by Danilo Napolitano, ahead of Wouter Weylandt and Greg Henderson. Stage two it was Van Dijk, ahead of Kris Boeckmans and Borut Bozic . Downing was fourth in that stage, narrowly missing out on time bonuses. He did add some in stage three, which was won by Kristof Goddaert , ahead of Filippo Pozzato and Steven Van Vooren.
The fourth stage had 11 KOM’s and while none of them were very long, the did break things apart. A group of ten riders came to the finish first, with Laurent Mangel leading home Marco Marcato and Maxime Vantomme. Downing was tenth, then there was a crucial ten-second gap to the next split of over two dozen riders.
This put Downing in a good position for the final stage, where his win and the intermediate sprints gave him 11 bonus seconds to make up for his deficit.
Downing is in his first ProTour year and has already an illustrious win, as he won the second stage of the Critérium International from Porto-Vecchio to Porto Vecchio in March. He beat Michael Albasini and Pierrick Fédrigo to the line on that occasion.
The 31-year-old has made a late debut in the ProTour, but has raced professionally before. He has won several races, such as the Druivenkoers – Overijse in 2006. He also finished second in the Tour of Ireland in 2008. It was a heartbreaking loss for Downing, who had taken over the lead in the penultimate stage.
On the final day from Killarney to Cork (155 km), he finished fourth, 33 seconds behind Marco Pinotti. Pinotti ended up winning the overall by 19 seconds.
Downing came back to win the Tour of Ireland the next year and also scored a precious fifth place in the Tour of Britain. His good results in 2009 and over the years finally netted him a place at Team Sky for 2010.