Fast action over the hills as Oscar Onley takes valiant 4th place after committed team ride

With yesterday’s sprint stage behind the peloton, where Team Picnic PostNL took fifth and 11th with Pavel Bittner and Tobias Lund Andresen respectively, a hillier finale awaited them into Rouen on Tuesday afternoon. Depending on the approach and attitude from the peloton, it was a day that could have went in several different ways; so the team approached the stage with multiple options for the finale – whether it was going to be a selective GC and puncheur battle, or more of a reduced bunch sprint.

Staying safe in the peloton while the break was up the road, the team bubbled up well around each other, and began to move up in the final 30 kilometres once those ahead were caught. It was an explosive and hard finale where the pace progressed and ramped up on each ascent, with the bunch reducing every time. Coming into the closing ten kilometres Tobias Lund Andresen, Warren Barguil and Oscar Onley remained in the peloton, but it was clear at that point it was going to be a selective fight. Barguil did a brilliant job to position Onley ahead of the steep climb, where what was left of the peloton completely exploded. Onley followed the very best in the world and made it into an elite group of seven, which grew to ten approaching the last kilometre. Playing it smart and leaning on others to close down any moves, Onley focused all of his energy on the uphill sprint to the line where he kicked to a brilliant fourth place on the day.

Once he caught his breath, Onley expressed while laughing: “If you ask me how I’m feeling right now, the answer is probably something that can’t be published. Before the stage we made the plan to position me going into those final climbs and the guys did a great job at that, with Warren really bringing me forward onto that last steep one. I really went to the limit on that last climb. We knew that you had to be in second wheel or so around that last corner, but the final kilometre was really on legs, and that’s all I had in the end. When you have guys like Jorgensen and Almeida to close the gaps, and when it’s flat and fast like that, I was never going to be able to stay away in the end if I attacked. I was really on the limit. It doesn’t get much bigger than this in terms of races and competitors so it’s nice to be able to prove to myself that I can be there right at the top.”

Team Picnic PostNL coach Matt Winston added: “Today was another really good team effort from all of the guys. Coming into the final our sprint group did some good positioning work and we still had Oscar, Tobias and Warren there until the last seven or so kilometres; so we had options to play depending on how the race unfolded. In the end, it was clear that the big GC guys were going to go for it, so Warren then did a superb job to bring Oscar into position; and from there it was down to legs. Oscar played it smart in the final and did the best he could, and we can look back on a really strong fourth place in the stage; and another day where we were in the mix for the win. Since we took Oscar into the team as a young rider, we’ve been working through the Development program with him and then into our Men’s program, and slowly building towards this. We’ve seen glimpses of it, with the win on Willunga Hill, and if you look back at his results over the past 18 months his results have been consistent in the one-week races, so we knew we were making steps and we continue to do so. For us the plan doesn’t change now and we will keep focusing on stages here at the race and see how far we can come there, and if we keep this up then we can be in the fight for more top day results throughout the race.”