"I had a lot of self-confidence" - Simon Carr solos for over an hour to take Tour of the Alps stage win for second year running

For the second year running, EF Education-EasyPost's Simon Carr has come to the fore in a big way at the Tour of the Alps. On stage 4 of the 2024 edition, the Brit was solo for over an hour en route to a stunning stage win.

"It is a very special victory," reflected the 25-year-old in his post-race interview. "I travelled here with GC ambitions but I had a very difficult time during the first few days. That was a shame, because I had been on an altitude training camp in Andorra for three weeks with my girlfriend. She did everything for me and today I finally felt happy again."

As mentioned, in 2023 Carr also took a solo stage win in the Alps, that time on stage 5 in an EF Education-EasyPost one-two ahead of Georg Steinhauser. This Thursday, Carr attacked with 45km of climbing to go. Although a catch looked close at one point a nasty crash for Chris Harper slowed things down considerably behind the lone leader.

"At one point my lead did indeed shrink to less than a minute, but I suddenly had a lot of space again. I heard that there had been a bad crash, so I descended further without much risk," Carr explains. "On the flat I knew that the favourites were going to attack each other and I had to hold on until the last climb. There I had a lot of self-confidence again, which allowed me to take it easy again at the end."