Tour de Korea 2016 (2.1), etappe 6

Quote

Fail van One

Quote


Stage 6 of the Tour de Korea was always billed as the queen stage and it certainly lived up to expectation. Starting the day in the Yellow jersey Karol Domagalski and the ONE Pro Cycling team would have a busy day as they attempted to control the race in the aim of defending his lead title.

As the flag dropped to start the 196km stage there were many attacks from the bunch, each time big groups attempting to go away. The composition of each breakaway attempt was always too big to control, so each time the ONE Pro Cycling train rode the bunch back across to them.

With the first KOM coming at 32km this would always be a key part of the race on the 4km climb, as soon as the peloton hit the climb the attacks began with a group of 10 riders escaping over the top of the climb followed by a chasing group of 6.

The team quickly went to the front in a bid to bring back the chase group and hold the breakaway at a manageable gap. Once the chase group was caught the breakaway extended their lead bit by bit with the team keeping the pressure on the front of the peloton.

The gap steadily increased to around 4 minutes by the second KOM at 118km. Over the top of the KOM the team lost 3 riders following the grueling effort and hard work they had put in leaving Richard Handley, Kristian House and Karol Domagalski chasing on the front, however with trio unable to make a dent in the gap to the breakaway, Handley & House were dropped from the peloton after giving everything to the chase leaving the Yellow jersey on the front of the peloton alone. With no assistance from any other teams Domagalski chased until he had no more unable to fight any longer at 25km to go

This then opened up the peloton to attacks with many riders attempting to jump clear to join the now six leaders. However no groups were able to jump across with the breakaway finishing 2 minutes 42 seconds up on the first of many chasing groups and over 7 minutes in front of the yellow jersey.

A bittersweet conclusion on Day 6, ONE Pro Cycling may have handed over the Yellow jersey but having tasted victory over the last few days, the team will now focus their efforts on the final two stages of the tour, putting everything into their performance. Tomorrow sees the penultimate stage of the race as the peloton reaches Seoul ready for the conclusion on Sunday.