Beadle caught 200m from the line on stage 4 in Taiwan

New Zealander Hamish Beadle came agonizingly close to a first career victory for Team Novo Nordisk on stage 4 of the Tour de Taiwan when he was the last man standing from the days breakaway only to be cruelly caught within the last 200m.

Head sports director Massimo Podenzana:

“Another frustrating day, we had two objectives for today’s stage. The first was to get in the breakaway and the second was to keep David sheltered and fresh to try and move up on the overall classification.”

“We achieved the first goal and Hamish was part of the day’s break and worked very well within the group. They gained a lot of time and chapeau to Hamish, because he really dug in and was the last rider out there. To be caught so close to the line is frustrating, but that’s cycling anddespite our efforts we came away with nothing today.”

Hamish Beadle:

“I’m super disappointed, completely deflated. We’ll reflect on how today went and take positives from it for sure, but at the moment I’m just gutted. It was so close.”

“The break went from the first kilometers, and we knew we had to be alive to it, so I was happy to be up there and to find a couple of Kiwi’s and Aussies in there, that really helped the collaboration, and we were rolling well together. I knew that the heat could potentially cause a problem for me and as I was following moves in the last 15km I started to cramp up and had to battle with myself to overcome that.

“At that point you’re in the pain cave anyway and you either give in or push on and I knew I was going to push on. The group kept reducing over every kilometer and as we hit the last few hundred meters, there were three of us left so with 500m to go I thought “it’s now or never” and jumped. I gave it everything I had and got swallowed by the chasing group just before the line.”