With Video: Philip Lavery at it again, bags another top 10 at Tour de Beauce

Philip Lavery (third rider from right, with green trim on black shorts) on his way to 10th place on stage 2 of the Tour de Beauce yesterday. Philip Deignan and Anthony Walsh also finished in the bunch on a day when over a third of the field was dropped.

Philip Lavery has enjoyed another strong result at the Tour de Beauce UCI 2.2 ranked race in Canada. He placed 10th in the bunch sprint that decided stage 2 after 152km from Thetford to Mines yesterday, Wednesday.

The Dubliner, who is based in France this year but is guesting in the six-day with Canadian team H&R Block, adds that result to the 5th place he took on the opening stage of the race on Tuesday, which also finished in a bunch sprint.

With time bonuses, Lavery is now 10th overall, equal on time with a large group of riders some 16 seconds down on yesterday's stage winner, the Canadian Guillaume Boivin riding his home tour on the Canadian national team.

Philip Deignan (Unitedhealthcare) was 11th on the opening stage and was 23rd yesterday. He is placed 13th overall and is in that group of riders with Lavery who have finished in the bunch on both days but are yet to pick up any time bonuses.

The only other Irish man in the race, Anthony Walsh (Astellas Oncology) was 78th yesterday and rolled over the line at the back of the 80-man group, from a field of 123, on the same time as the stage winner. Walsh lost 1:15 on the opening stage and is now 1:31 down overall in 75th. He is coming back from a broken collar bone and enjoyed a good ride yesterday.

The race starts to get serious today, Thursday, when the stage ends with a summit finish to Mont-Mégantic.

Based on Deignan’s climbing form so far this season, it may offer him his best opportunity for a stage win and to make a play for yellow. He has already excelled this year, riding strongly in every race he has done and winning the Tour of the Gila overall as well as the mountains' classification in that event in New Mexico last month.

He followed that up with the much more testing, UCI ranked 2.HC, Tour of California which featured a number of WorldTour teams, taking 3rd on the second toughest mountain stage and claiming 9th on the final overall, with the race won by Tejay van Garderen (BMC).

Deignan had been 3rd overall but lost time on a flat transition stage when crosswinds split the field only for the Donegal man to find himself at the wrong end of the field when the damage was being done.

See results below this video of stage 2: