Thomas Amongst The Classic Favourites

Last updated : 08 April 2011 By Kev Monks

British road race Champion Geraint Thomas is amongst the favourites for the Classic Paris-Roubaix race on Sunday.

The Team Sky Rider has been in fine form this season including an excellent 10th place in last week's Tour Of Flanders and is in Sky's squad for the race which ends in the velodrome in Roubaix.

Fabian Cancellera who won the race last year is again amongst the favourites, whilst three time winner Tom Boonen can't be ruled out.

Mark Cavendish will ride for HTC Highroad in a race that will see a number of Brits taking part. One who will be missing is David Millar. The Garmin-Cervelo rider is out with a flu like virus. 

You can see the race live on Eurosport from 11.15 BST.

___________________________________________________ 

Oscar Freire won the Fifth stage of the Basque Tour this afternoon but was disqualified after the race.

HTC Highroad's Michael Albasini spent most of the day out front on the 177km stage from Eibar to Zalla to win the King Of The Mountains jersey outright.

Albasini lead until 16kms to go when Quickstep's Kevin Seeldrayers took over. David Lopez led a three man break but as the stage got the 4.4km to go mark, his stint at the front was ended.

Steve Cummings (pictured below) had been suffering from a virus but he was leading his Team Sky team-mates towards the finish.

 

Rabbobank did the running and it was Oscar Freire who took the win in a time of 4hr 27 mins and 3 seconds from Lampre's Francesco Gavazzi and Kristof Vandewalle.

However, Freire was disqualified after the finish due to having a push from a teammate who blocked him by accident in the sprint for the line.

Race leader Joaquim Rodriquez finished twelfth and keeps his leaders yellow jersey from Andrea Klodden going into tomorrow's final stage.

Tomorrow's final stage is an individual 24km time trial around Zallia.