Having just won two stages of the Tour of Denmark, Andrea Guardini took his first WorldTour win for Astana when he won today's opening stage of the Tour of Denmark. Being on a rich vein of form, the Italian says that he is currenly going through the best period of his career.

Andrea Guardini was very happy with his stage victory in the Eneco Tour.

"This might be the best period of my career," the Italian said. He had won two stages in the Tour of Denmark last week.

However, with 30 km left, things did not look great for Guardini. The Italian crashed and seemed to worn out for the final sprint. Also because the peloton kept pulling really hard and the rain continued to come down. "But fortunately the rain then stopped," said Guardini.

"It was a tough day today with so much wind. At the front many teams tried to control the pace," the Italian sprinter recounted. "The final straight line was a tough one too, with many changes in position. But my teammates led me out perfectly.

“Borut [Bozic] said he had no leadout for me today so instead we calculated a sprint from behind at 600m to scare everybody into a straight line that I could crawl up. At 200m Dumoulin was in the headwind too long, and the timing of the sprint was perfect for me. I’m proud of my physical shape."

Because of earlier crashes sprinter such as Modolo, van Poppel and Goss were no longer contenders. Greipel wasn't much of a match today either. The ultimate jump by Dumoulin in the final kilometer made things very exciting for the sprinters.

"He is a strong time trialist, but with the headwind it was impossible for him to maintain his effort."

"I started my sprint at 200m. To win today you had to be very strong. This is perhaps the best period of my career: I won two races in Denmark and today I manage my first World Tour win for Astana."

Guardini is the first leader in the Eneco overall ranking. He also wears the red Lotto points jersey.

The team's GC rider Andriy Grivko said his ENECO Tour stage focus comes Friday, Saturday and Sunday as the race filters southeast through Flanders, Liege and even Amstel Gold Race country and said his legs felt rested enough after riding in July’s victorious Tour de France.