Last minute sprint secures victory for ProTouch
At 1km to go the Peloton was six seconds behind but Rohan put in a massive last effort to drive the duo to the finish and seizing the win.
With Rohan du Plooy starting Stage 2 of the Tour of Peninsula in the Sprinters Jersey, the mission was clear – correct the mistakes of Stage 1 and go back into battle.
The 157,4km second stage saw a breakaway by three riders who took advantage early and the gap grew to as much as 6mins, 30secs at one point, but the peloton was controlling the situation and managed to come back easily in the last 50km.
It was after the peloton caught the breakaway group that ProTouch’s Rohan du Plooy, Kent Main and an Iranian rider decided to escape from the peloton.
The maximum gap was 22sec on the peloton, managed by all the Sprinter’s teams and the mission looked really difficult.
With two riders in the break, ProTouch had to focus on a team effort in front of the peloton and that showed all the spirit that the team had.
After a last long effort, Kent joined the rest of the team in the peloton and left Rohan in an incredible duo for the final few kilometres.
The time gap was 12 seconds with 2km to go, and the peloton was fast closing in. At 1km to go the peloton was a mere six seconds behind, but Rohan put in a massive last effort to drive the duo to the finish and seize the win.
This was a big team success for the South African outfit, who showed character and sacrifice and made their dream a reality.
ProTouch also won the Best Team Competition and is now third overall in the Team Competition, while Rohan du Plooy leads the Sprinters Competition and Reynard Butler is 12th.
Final Results:
1st place – Rohan du Plooy (5th on GC)
5th place – Reynard Butler (14th on GC)
12th place – Clint Hendricks (18th on GC)
