Planet survives the climbs to sprint into top 10 in Rwanda

Frenchman Charles Planet finally broke the top 10 at the third time of asking for Team Novo Nordisk on today’s fourth stage at the Tour du Rwanda after another strong all round performance.

A short but tough punchy stage saw Planet again supported well by his teammates as the world’s first all diabetes professional cycling team supported their leader over the climbs with the Frenchman sprinting into 8th place in the final.

Sports director Gennady Mikhaylov:

“An excellent team performance from the guys today and after banging on the door since the start of the race Charles showed his form with a strong finish and an impressive top ten.”

“We talked beforehand about how today’s stage could be a good opportunity for Charles, after David’s success here in previous years we had some previous knowledge of the parcours and that helped us today. We wanted to get a top ten result and now we’ve achieved it we need to keep pushing into the second half of the race and keep our momentum going.”

Charles Planet:

“I’m very happy with how it went today, it’s so good to break into the top ten and I love that kind of finish when a small group goes to the line. If those three guys hadn’t come through right at the end, it could’ve been a top five, but I’m satisfied with the result and man it feels good.”

“Already it feels like a boost to my morale. I’ve been saying the last few days that I felt good and the previous results didn’t really reflect just how good my legs are, so to demonstrate that today feels like a breakthrough.

“David Lozano knows this stage well after winning here in the past and he told me after the first climb that I was looking good and could do a good result here. Turns out he was right!”