Battling mood for Swift, he’s 9th

Less than two weeks after a crash during training, Ben Swift gave reassuring feedbacks about his condition, obtaining the 9th place in the final stage of the Volta ao Algarve, a hilly course of 173,5 km from Faro to the summit arrival at Malhao.

The British rider from UAE Team Emirates (photo Bettini) joined a large breakaway of 31 cyclists and he succeeded in crossing the finish line in the top 10, at 29″ to the overwhelming Kwiatkowski, who won the stage and obtained the succeess in the overall classification (Martin 14th in the GC).

Swift said: “I’ve felt better and better for all the week. I wanted to test how my body would have reacted in race after the crash I had in the past days, I was not so good at sprint, maybe I was not yet confident enough, however I’m happy with today, I had a good day in the break, I felt that the condition is good“.

Stage 5 results
1 Michal Kwiatkowski (Team Sky) 4h18’02”
2 Ruban Guerreiro (Trek-Segafredo) 4″
3 Serge Pauwels (Dimension Data) 8″
9 Ben Swift (UAE Team Emirates) 29″

Final general classification
1 Michal Kwiatkowski (Team Sky) 18h54’11”
2 Geraint Thomas (Team Sky) 1’31”
3 Tejay Van Garderen (BMC) 2’16”
14 Daniel Martin (UAE Team Emirates) 3’29”