Stage 5 of the Tour du Rwanda ended with a bittersweet feeling for NSN: the team successfully kept the leader’s yellow jersey safe on Moritz Kretschy‘s shoulders, but Itamar Einhorn narrowly missed out on taking his second victory of this year’s race.
Israeli sprinter Einhorn received everything a sprinter could ask for from his four teammates: a full-gas, team-time-trial-style effort throughout the 82km circuit in Rubavu – so fast that no significant breakaway ever had a chance.
“It was a crazy and amazing job they did,” he said. Unfortunately, he lost a fraction of a second in the final corner, and his desperate chase after Jermaine Zemke (REMBE | rad-net) following a short burst of rain fell just short.
Einhorn added: ”We came into the final climb first, and then we took the corner at 700 meters to go in first place. We accelerated nicely, as we planned, but just before the last two corners, the guy from REMBE sprinted. He took the final corners first, and, in these conditions, it was super hard to fight through the corners. That’s how I lost the win, but I got second, and we have more days to come.”
However, the most important objective of the day was achieved. Kretschy will head into stage 6 with an unchanged lead of 2:02 in the general classification. The German said: “Today was actually harder than expected, but it was still quite controlled. The team did an amazing job again, and we were strong.
“I want to stay in the yellow jersey, and then we will see what happens. I’m quite confident that we can still play for stage wins.”