Michael Woods (Israel Start-Up Nation) said he believed bad luck with mechanicals for his team mates Dan Martin and Hugo Hofstetter cost him the overall victory at Tour des Alpes Maritimes et du Var.
On the final stage today, some 136km starting and finishing in Blausasc and featuring three cat 1 climbs, a quality breakaway went clear. After surging minutes ahead, some of its riders survived to the finish.
Gianluca Brambilla of Trek Segafredo was one of those riders up the road, with the Italian attacking those he was with to win the stage solo and take the overall victory.
Just 13 seconds behind him, Tao Geoghegan Hart (Ineos Grenadiers) sprinted in for 2nd place at the front of a four-man chase group. That chase group was made up of the only other survivors of the breakaway that were not caught by the yellow jersey group.
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The yellow jersey group was down to only five riders on the line and was just 18 seconds down on winner Brambilla. However, because race leader Woods could not close Brambilla down, he saw the overall victory pass from him to the Italian; just five seconds between them in 1st and 2nd in the final overall.
And Woods believed had it not been for mechanicals suffered earlier in the day by Dan Martin and Hugo Hofstetter, which he said slowed his team when they were working to close down the breakaway, he believed he would have won the race.
“It was a really tough race. Trek proved that they’re a really strong team and they really earned that overall win but I feel like our team rode super well," Woods said.
"Unfortunately some mechanical cost us and I think those were the seconds we needed in order to keep the general classification. I’m disappointed I couldn’t keep the jersey; I felt like I was the strongest guy here.
"I felt like I proved that on the climbs, I felt like I proved that in the race. But, yeah, there’s a bit of disappointment. But I came into this race so well, so I really can’t complain with how I’m starting off the year.”
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Woods added he knew the stage was going to be very difficult, and the lead hard to defend, especially as he was riding against a strong Trek team that also included stage 1 winner and 2nd place yesterday Bauke Mollema.
“I knew if I was going toe-to-toe with guys, I’d probably have a good shot at winning. But unfortunately, really it was just a few mechanicals cost us this race," he said.
"We had Hugo and Dan having mechanicals that meant that we had to slow the pace down to collect them again. Had we not done that I think that would have made the five second difference.”
The race opened on Friday with a victory for Mollema, by one second ahead of a large group. On Saturday's stage 2 Woods took victory on the uphill finish just a couple of seconds ahead of Mollema in 2nd place, taking the yellow jersey from him.
At the start of today's final stage Woods led the race by just one second from Mollema, with David Gaudu (Groupama-FDJ) in 3rd at seven seconds and the first 19 riders on GC all covered by just 13 seconds.
While today's breakaway gained five minutes at one point it broke up as the race progressed and the gap between the escape and the peloton kept coming down; Dan Martin aiding his team on the front of the bunch in the service of Woods.
However, up front Brambilla finally dropped the last of the breakaway men with 11km to go. He then impressively rode clear of the remains of the breakaway, as the yellow jersey group closed in behind but ultimately couldn't make the catch.
Dan Martin eventually finished in 20th place today in a large group almost four minutes down and took 15th overall at 3:53. After Brambilla at the top of the final general classification, Woods was 2nd at 5 seconds with Mollema in 3rd at six seconds.
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