The young Brazilian soloed to victory on the penultimate stage of the Tour du Rwanda.
Henrique Bravo brought Soudal Quick-Step Devo’s second win of the week in Africa, after a late attack in Kigali, where the 147.2km stage 7 – which took in four classified climbs and more than 2200 vertical meters – concluded.
The last difficulty on the course was the famous Mur de Kigali, the 2.8km hill that played such an important role at last year’s World Championships. It was there that Henrique took a flyer from a select front group, that in the meantime had caught the remnants of the day-long breakaway, seizing his chance and powering to a spectacular victory – his first since joining our feeder squad one year ago.
“It’s hard for me to find the words to tell you what this win and this moment mean for me. What I want to highlight is that everyone on the team worked hard today to bring back the escapees and to put me in that position, and that makes me very proud. I felt good and confident on the last climb, so with 1500 meters to go I attacked. As soon as I got a gap, I kept pushing full gas without looking back and held onto my margin until the finish.”
“It’s an unbelievable day and I’m incredibly happy. It feels special to take my first victory with the Wolfpack after what has already been a great week for us here”, said Henrique, the first Brazilian to win at the Tour du Rwanda, where he’s also our best placed rider in the general classification with one stage left at the Tour du Rwanda.
Photo credit: ©Tour du Rwanda
