Swift takes first GC win of career

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Ben Swift (Team Sky) held on to claim the first overall classification win of his professional career at the Tour of Picardie in France on Sunday as Jimmy Casper (Saur-Sojasun) sprinted to victory in the final stage. Swift's win was also the first overall classification victory for his team.

Casper fastest in the bunch sprint into Sissonne, with Koldo Fernandez (Euskaltel-Euskadi) and Danilo Napolitano (Katusha) finishing second and third, respectively. But Swift's ninth place stage finish was enough to ensure he claimed the general classification, ahead of Fernandez and Astana's Allan Davis.

"I was in a strong position but we needed to keep an eye on the bonus seconds. With Allan Davis not picking up anything there, all I needed to do then was finish inside the top-20," Swift said on the Team Sky website. He praised the work done by his teammates throughout the 174km stage.

"They did an awesome job again to control the race right from the word go, they looked after me the whole day. It was perfect and without them I'd have been nowhere."

Swift had started the day with a 10 second advantage over Davis and Sky controlled the tempo in the peloton as they sought to defend their captain's lead. Six riders moved away at the beginning of the stage.

Stéphane Auge (Cofidis) was one of the six escapees and used his time in the break to capture top points at each of the days four climbs – sealing the mountains classification in the process. Auge's teammate Jens Keukeleire also came along for the ride, with Nikolay Trusov (Katusha), Steven Van Vooren (Topsport Vlaanderen-Mercator), Johan Le Bon (Bretagne – Schuller) and eventual stage winner Jimmy Casper (Saur-Sojasun) also a part of the initial move.

Despite holding a three minute advantage over the peloton, Auge, Van Vooren and Le Bon grew frustrated by a lack of cohesion in the group and pushed off on their own. The move failed to gain any further traction as their lead stabilised around the three minute mark.

But with bonus seconds on offer at the intermediate sprint later in the stage, the peloton reeled in the break after 127km of racing. Koldo Fernandez (Euskaltel – Euskadi) snatched a precious few seconds at the second and final sprint.

José Ivan Gutierrez (Caisse d'Epargne) then launched a move, taking Nadir Haddou (Big Mat-Auber 93), Han Feng (Skil-Shimano) and Valeriy Dmitriyev (Astana) with him. The leaders moved out to a gap of 45 seconds, before Sky led the chase to bring them back by the 15km-to-go marker.

The teams of the sprinters weren't going to afford any further opportunities to would-be attackers. Jimmy Casper (Saur-Sojasun), well placed at the red kite, opened his sprint as the race entered its final 200 metres and came past Fernandez and Danilo Napolitano (Katusha) to secure his third win of the season.

Combined with his earlier intermediate sprint win, Fernandez's second place bonus was enough to lift him into second place overall, seven seconds behind overall champion Ben Swift.