December 02, 2014 (Sharjah City, United Arab Emirates) – Alexandr Pliuschin (MOL) Skydive Dubai won the 2nd Annual Sharjah International Cycling Tour stage race that ran Nov. 28—Dec. 1. The event was held near Dubai. Canada sent one team: Pro Cycling Team Norco Premier Tech and Jean-Michel Lachance managed a 12th place finish overall at 8:02 behind Pliuschin’s winning time of 13:00.40. Anton Varabei finished 29th and Etienne Samson was 43rd on the GC. Louis-Charles Lacroix was 56th, Simon Ouellet was 78th, and Maxime Pluart was 96th out of some 117 riders who finished the event.
Samson wrote to Pedal explaining how his team got the invite:
“In the last years we had a couple riders (including myself) racing in many UCI stages races outside Canada (Costa Rica, Dominican Republic, Vietnam, Tobago, etc.). The experience was awesome and we did get some results, so I felt that the team itself was ready to step-up. We have bigger goals in 2015, and building 2015 starts now. Even if we don’t plan on turning continental for 2015, we do aim at bigger racing and more result. So, we were looking for UCI stage racing this winter, contacts were made with a couple of organizations during October and we got a lot of positive responses.
“We chose to race Sharjah Tour because it was the most realistic for us, having four stages with only a medium mountain stage and of course because the place is quite exciting. Training in November in Canada is not so easy so we didn’t want to get into too long or too harsh a race. The goal was to get experience and build team spirit and this can only be done if we can actually do the race and not just survive it. So yes, we do have some performance goal, our invitee, Jean-Michel Lachance, just got back from racing Guatemala and is in a very good form. I think we can race for him, giving our new riders some experience in high level racing and giving the team some visibility. “
Earlier correspondence indicated:
“… We are the only Canadian team invited. This weekend (2014-11-15) the race organizers will post the team and registered riders so we will have a better look at what we are up against. We know the race will include an 8.5 km prologue in Dubaï / Sharjah, stage two will cross the Emirates peninsula from west to east for 163km, ending up in medium mountains. Stage three will be a 164km trip back to the western coast of the peninsula with fewer ascents and stage four will be a flat 148km on the western coast. The place is known to be very windy, with high possibilities of sand storms. “
Hot temperatures and strong head winds challenged the riders and Pedal joins the cycling community at congratulating Pro Cycling Team Norco Premier Tech for their performance.
Full results here.