Second win in three days for the 18-year-old at the Vuelta al Besaya, one of the hardest junior races of the season.
Simon Defrance and Soudal Quick-Step U19 are on fire this week! After the inaugural day’s victory, when he left everyone behind with 70 kilometers to go and arrived at the finish with more than a minute in hand, Simon became the first Frenchman to score two wins at a single edition of the Cantabrian race.
This time, our rider arrived in the closing meters of the penultimate stage together with last year’s winner Benjamin Noval (MMR Academy) and he outpowered the Spaniard on the slightly uphill finish in Polanco to claim his fifth success of the season, which propelled him to the top of the leaderboard. It was a sweet day for our junior squad, as Jakub Tesarik rounded out the podium, just 17 seconds behind his teammate.
It’s unbelievable to take my second victory here!
“At the start of the day I was hoping for a good result so I could improve my GC, but it turned out I had great legs again, just line on the opening stage, and I’m happy I could win again”, said Simon, who leads the standings for seven seconds. “The gap I have isn’t big, but the entire team is motivated and we’ll do our best on Sunday to defend the jersey.”
Photo credit: ©Ciclismo Gonzales
