« The day before, I had "tourista" and was completly empty, not able to eat before and during the race and lost roughly 1min / km in the last 20km of the race !

After the race tough, I was able to eat again and was feeling much better the next morning. Having done the race in years before, I knew the finish and was expecting a field sprint in which I was hoping for a strong finish. Tough, the race course was much different with lots of climbing to get to the finish town of Liberia.

After 20km to go, I see GC guys attacking and I figured it was an important move to marked and I jumped hard to bridge across. It was pretty hard only to follow the group in the rolling hills of the start as we quickly gain 10min on the main peloton. With JPS team present in big numbers, they did the most work in the group and I was able to save my legs as much as I could in the group (16 riders).

With 9km to go, we catch Marconi Duran from Coopenae who rode very strong throughout the stage forcing JPS to chase. From that moment, all cards played in my favor as I was the fastest rider in the group. I stayed calm until the finish and let the others started the sprint unlike stage one where I lost a big opportunity of wearing the yellow. I then launch my sprint from 5th and pass all riders to raise my arms in the air for a fraction of a second (so much journalists and photographs to dodge after the line).

I am very happy with that result and will be wearing the "regularidad" turtle jersey !

Stage 5 is flat and I will try to comfort my advance in the classification. »

Jean-Michel Lachance

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