Rekita ends Tour de Normandie in eighth position

After a false start to the Tour de Normandie, the Leopard riders bounced back in a great way during the second stage. The team was directly close to a stage win with Alexander Krieger and took two leaders jerseys, which was a good starting point for the rest of the week. Since the GC ambitions were already trashed on the first day, the riders never gave up and rode active every single stage. By doing so, the team tried to get solid stage results and improve the positions in the general classification. Especially in stage five, Rekita was close to improving this GC position even more, but was caught back by the pack at 400 meters from the line. Next to this, Alexander Krieger finished three times in the top ten.

Rekita rode in the leaders jerseys of the rushes and combination classification for most of the week, but was by a minimal margin not able to take both jerseys home. Being eighth overall and the very attacking style of racing from the entire team, Leopard was a thread to the bunch all week long. Rekita finished the race in a very solid eighth position and Alexander Krieger took position 26, which would have been position five if he didn't have a flat tire in the race's opening stage. In the end, it's a shame that Rekita lost the jersey as leader of the rushes classification. All in all, Leopard Pro Cycling looks back satisfied as they end the race as third in the team ranking.

Gregor Willwohl: "With a top 10 in the GC and a podium place on the second day, we can be fairly happy, but we aimed for more. It's too bad that we lost two of our main GC contenders due to bad luck in the first stage, but it's great to see that we were able to come back strong with Szymon on the second day. We always thought that there were chances to take time back, so we tried on each and every stage to form groups and echelons to gain some seconds, but it didn't work out. We tried really hard and we tried several tactics, but we have to take it as it comes. We showed that we can work well together as a team, which will help us in the next races."

GC Tour de Normandie (UCI 2.2)
8. Szymon Rekita (POL) + 0'40"
30. Alexander Krieger (GER) + 1'00"
50. Jan Maas (NED) + 4'57"
55. Jack Burke (CAN) + 5'15"
95. Gaëtan Pons (LUX) + 26'15"
115. Mario Spengler (SUI) + 49'27"