Waiting for the start
Alexander Kristoff, Guillaume Boivin, Philippe Gilbert, Ryder Hesjedal, and Romain Bardet.
Hugo Houle and Michal Kwiatkowski.
Etixx Quick Step.
Riding laps of Côte des Glacis
The peloton approaches.
An early mechanical for Kristoff.
The peloton.
The 6 man break away.
Nate Brown in the bunch.
Ryan Roth and Cesare Benedetti in the break.
Janier Acevedo, Simon Geschke, and Tom Boonen.
Montée des Jardins
Perrig Quemeneur in the break.
Christian Meier, Tinkoff Saxo, and AG2R in the peloton.
Passing under the flamme rouge with a few laps to go
The peloton.
Tony Martin and Kwiatkowski.
Laps on Grand Allée
The 6 man break is now down to 4.
Lampre pulls the peloton.
Luke Rowe pours water on his legs.
Matt Bushe.
Jakob Fuglsang and Wilco Kelderman.
The finish
Rigoberto Uran takes the win over an impressive field.
The podium
Michael Matthews, Alexander Kristoff, and Ryder Hesjedal relax and get cleaned up for the podium.
1st Rigoberto Uran
2nd Michael Matthews
3rd Alexander Kristoff
KOM Ryan Roth.
Hesjedal receives flowers from Bernard Hinault as the top placing Canadian.
Today’s 22 autographs came from:
6. Rigoberto Uran
13. Bernie Eisel
31. Alexander Kristoff
34. Sergei Lagutin
44. Chris Juul-Jensen
62. Brent Bookwalter
75. Michael Matthews
87. Hugo Houle
94. Chad Haga
98. Ramon Sinkeldam
101. Rui Costa
114. Stig Broeckx
132. Arnaud Demare
147. Ramunas Navardauskas
161. Matthias Brändle
175. Yohann Gene
193. Darren Lapthorne
201. Guillaume Boivin
203. Rob Britton
204. Alex Cataford
207. Ryan Roth
208. Mike Woods
Pleased I managed to get autographs from the entire podium before the race started this morning. Not bad! (Photo credit @GPCQM)
