Michel Ries in brilliant tenth place at the Tour del Porvenir

Luxembourg’s Michel Ries, a Trek-Segafredo stagiaire in the recent Tour of Utah, was the best of the four Continental Polartec-Kometa riders present in the Tour de l´Avenir with their respective national teams. Ries finished tenth, 4:25 behind the final winner, Slovenia’s Tadej Pogacar.

But the Grand-Ducal rider, ninth this season in the Giro U23, took second place on the provisional podium, just over a minute after finishing second in the ninth stage where the Spaniard Fernando Barceló won. “I’m really happy after finishing both the Giro and the Tour in the top ten”, he added.

“This Tour of the Future was a really beautiful race for me,” Ries said just hours after finishing his participation in the French round. “The first few days I tried to save my energy and avoid wasting time in the general classification. Day by day I was feeling good and I was seeing that I was recovering well the efforts of the Tour of Utah”.

Ries’ big day was precisely that ninth stage in which Pogacar virtually flattened an unofficial victory in the Tour with Sunday’s stage to spare. “I launched an attack 20 kilometres from the end at Val d´Isere with the yellow jersey and managed to finish second. Unfortunately I didn’t have a good day today and also because of some problems with the bike, at the end of the last climb I had to change saddle”.

In the 50th position, the Dutchman Kevin Inkelaar finished in second place on the podium, with his compatriot Thymen Arensman as one of his team-mates.  Juan Pedro López, in his debut with the Spanish national team, finished 75th. A real experience for the Sevillian, who was affected by a crash during the team time trial. “When the heart can do it and the legs can’t, you can’t do it anymore,” he reflected on his Twitter profile.

Austrian Patrick Gamper, who led the race for two days during the 2017 edition, had to leave this year during the second stage.

(automatic translation, sorry for mistakes)