Sacha Modolo got the Northern campaign going for Lampre-Merida when the fast Italian won a dramatic second stage of the Driedaagse van De Panne. Having showed great skills with his teammates Maximilano Richeze and Davide Cimolai to make the key selection on the Kemmelberg, he showed off his fast sprint when he held off Arnaud Demare (FDJ) and Alexander Kristoff (Katusha) in the final sprint while Gert Steegmans (Omega Pharma-Quick Step) collected many bonus seconds throughout the stage and took over the leader's jersey.

 

Sacha Modolo got his Lampre-Merida career off to a fantastic start when he won four races within his first month of racing but since then the Italian has had a tougher. Today he found back to his winning ways when he delivered Lampre-Merida their first success on the cobbles this year on the second stage of the Driedaagse van De Panne.

 

With summerlike conditions, the stage was expected to follow its traditional formula with it all ending in a big bunch sprint but the racing ended up being much more animated than expected. Keen to gain time on some of his GC rivals, Niki Terpstra and his teammate Gert Steegmans forced the pace on the Kemmelberg at the midpoint of the race.

 

The famed climb is usually located too early to make a difference in this race but when several key riders made the 25-rider front group that emerged on the top, there was an interest in keeping things going. They quickly swallowed up the early escapees to make it a 32-rider move.

 

Behind, several team combined forces in the chase, with Lotto Belisol, Giant-Shimano, Unitedhealthcare, NetApp and 3M being the most active. Having been more than 2 minutes behind at one point, their dedicated work brought the gap down to 1.20 but it was too late.

 

With five riders in the front group, Omega Pharma-Quick Step had a clear interest in driving the pace and with Arnaud Demare and Alexander Kristoff also up there, they got a lot of help from FDJ and Katusha. Marcel Kittel had made the split but none of his teammates had joined him and so he could only for his team to have success in their chase from the peloton.

 

Terpstra and his teammate Guillaume Van Keirsbulck used the final intermediate sprint to attack with Oscar Gatto (Cannondale) and the trio managed to pull out a 30-second gap. At one point, it seemed that they would stay away but when several team combined forces in the chase, they got caught with 3km to go.

 

Instead, it all got decided in a sprint from the front group and all eyes were on Kittel to come away with the win. He was perfectly placed on Modolo's wheel when Maximiano Richeze gave the Italian the perfect lead-out but then allowed Ruslan Tleubayev (Astana) to pass him. That was a bad decision as the Kazakh boxed him in and so he never got a chance to sprint.

 

Instead, Modolo powered down the middle of the road and despite giving it his all, Demare had no match to his turn of speed. The Frenchman had to settle for second while Alexander Kristoff narrowly edged out Tleubayev for third.

 

Race leader Peter Sagan followed his De Panne trend of taking it easy on the second stage and he finished in a third group that lost more than 15 minutes. Instead, Steegmans used bonus seconds scored in the first two intermediate sprints to take over the lead as he heads into the final stage with a 1-second advantage over Gatto.

 

Tomorrow the race comes to an end with a split stage. In the morning, the riders will do a short flat stage starting and ending in De Panne while the race will be decided in the 14.3km time trial in the afternoon. Starting at 10.15 CEST and 14.25 CEST respectively, you can follow both stages on CyclingQuotes.com/live.

 

The longest stage

As usual, the second stage was the longest of the Driedaagse van de Panne as it brought the riders over 206km from Zottegem in the Flemish Ardennes to Koksijde on the North Sea coast. The stage was a mostly flat affair but contained four Gent-Wevelgem climbs at the midpoint, with the Monteberg and Kemmelberg being the most well-known. From there it was flat to the finish and the stage ended with three laps of an 11km finishing circuit in Koksijde.

 

The summerlike conditions in Flanders continue and again the riders took off in beautiful weather. Three riders didn't appear at the start as Kevin Hulsmans (Vastgoestservice) fell ill overnight while Zakkari Dempster (NetApp) crashed both in Gent-Wevelgem and yesterday's stage and preferred to go home to recover for Sunday's race. The final non-starter was Leigh Howard (Orica-GreenEDGE) who had claimed on Twitter that he was ready to support Luke Durbridge the coming days but may have become ill as well.

 

A failed attempt

Like yesterday, the stage took off with a very fast start as many riders were keen to be part of the action. The first group to get a significant gap was made up of Mattia Pozzo (YellowFluo), Pablo Colonna (Bardiani), and Edward Theus (Topsport) who managed to build up a 10-second gap.

 

Dutch champion Johnny Hoogerland (Androni), Fernando Grijalba (Caja Rural), Michael Vingerling (3M), and Kevin Van Melsen (Wanty) managed to join the trio but he septet was quickly swallowed up. The attacking continued until the riders hit the Edelareberg after more than 10km of racing.

 

The break goes clear

The ascent was not a categorized climb in today's stage but it served as a great launch pad for attacks. Sebastien Rosseler (Veranclassic), Jelle Wallays (Topsport), James Vanlandschoot (Wanty), Antonino Parrinello (Androni), Marco Canola (Bardiani), Daniele Colli (YellowFluo), and Alessandro Bazzana (Unitedhealthcare) managed to get clear on the slopes.

 

Caja Rural had missed the move and so Luis Mas took off in pursuit. Meanwhile, the peloton decided that it was time to slow down and they allowed the gap to start to open up.

 

Mas sits up

Mas started his chase 26 seconds behind the leaders but as he lost time, he finally decided to sit up to wait for the peloton. In the main group, it was the Cannondale team of race leader Peter Sagan that took their position on the front but they had no intention of setting a too hard pace as the gap continued to grow.

 

It reached 7.35 by the time the peloton passed Passendale but then Cannondale started to up the pace slightly as they brought the gap down to less than 7 minutes. Meanwhile, a crash brought down Johann Van Zyl (MTN-Qhubeka), Jerome Baugnies (Wanty), and Tom Devriendt (3M) but they all got back on their bikes.

 

Lotto start to chase

Francesco Gavazzi (Astana) who crashed in yesterday's stage, threw in the towel and left the race while Lotto Belisol decided to lend a hand to the chase. The Belgian team has had a lot of bad luck in recent days with crashes for André Greipel and Frederik Willems and they were keen to see Kenny Dehaes get up there today.

 

Their work paid off as the gap dropped to less than 6 minutes as the riders were now approaching the hilly zone. Parrinello scored maximum points on the Monteberg ahead of Canola and Bazzana on the Monteberg.

 

Terpstra and Steegmans split the peloton

On the Kemmelberg, all hell broke loose as Niki Terpstra and Gert Steegmans decided to test their legs for the Tour of Flanders and so they attacked hard. The acceleration split the peloton into three major group, with the distance between the first two being 20 seconds shortly after the top.

 

Peter Sagan doesn't want to take any risk ahead of the Tour of Flanders and so he found himself in the third group. The first group was made up of 25 riders and consisted of Fenn, Steegmans, Terpstra, Van Keirsbulck, Vermote, Gatto, Breen, Tleubayev, Démare, Delage, Ladagnous, Modolo, Cimolai, Richeze, Durbridge, Jérôme, Kittel, Porsev, Paolini, Kristoff, Lampaert, Vanbilsen, Napolitano, Finetto and Ruijgh.

 

The Sagan group sits up

While the drama occurred in the peloton, Canola beat Colli and Vanlandschoot on the day's final climb, the Vidaigneberg, before starting the northerly journey to the coast. The gap had now come down to 4.22 as three riders tried to attack from the first peloton but were quickly brought back.

 

The 25 riders were working well together as OPQS, Katusha, Topsport, FDJ and Lampre-Merida all showed a great interest in keeping the move going. The Sagan group tried for a little while but with 60km to go, they were already more than 5 minutes behind. Even though, they briefly got it down to 4.30, they quickly sat up and ended up losing more than 15 minutes.

 

A hard chase

On the other hand, the second group was in no mood to give up. Lotto Belisol, Giant-Shimano - who only had Kittel in the front group - NetApp-Endura, UnitedHealthCare, and 3M rode hard but the gap had now come up to 2.30.

 

With 59km to go, the first group caught the escapees to make it a 32-rider move. A little later, Omega Pharma-Quick Step showed their GC intentions at the first intermediate sprint when Steegmans sprinted past his teammate Van Keirsbulck to take 3 bonus seconds while another rider from the Belgian team, Julien Vermote, took third. A frustrated Kenneth Vanbilsen (Topsport) had to settle for fourth.

 

The gap comes down

The gap was very stable at around 2.15 but as MTN-Qhubeka also started to chase, things began to change. A the first passage of the line, the gap was down to 1.30 and it seemed the second group had a chance to get back.

 

At the passage of the line, the riders again sprinted for bonus seconds and again Steegmans was the fastest. He easily held off Vanbilsen while the big favourite Terpstra scored a single second for taking third.

 

Terpstra takes off

The gap came down to 1.20 but it wouldn't get any lower. As OPQS, Lampre, Katusha, and Topsport continued to drive the pace in the front group, it again started to grow and at the next passage of the line, it was 1.35.

 

At that point, Terpstra decided that he wouldn't wait for the sprint for the bonus seconds in the third intermediate sprint. Instead, he took off with Gatto on his wheel and the Italian followed him all the way to the line to take second.

 

A trio is created

Behind, Terpstra's teammate Guillaume Van Keirsbulck took off in pursuit and he passed the line in third to take the final second. He quickly joined the front trio and they decided it was worth to keep the move going.

 

In the chase group, only FDJ decided to do some work but Matthieu Ladagnous and Mickael Delage couldn't keep up with the front trio. Suddenly, the gap had gone up to 25 seconds and it was time for the chasers to react.

 

The chase gets organized

Luke Durbridge could see GC rival Terpstra disappear up the road and so he took a few pulls on the front before again fading back to the rear end of the group. Instead, Topsport put Wallays and Yves Lampaert on the front while Katusha asked Luca Paolini and Alexander Porsev to join the chase.

 

When Lampre-Merida also put Davide Cimolai on the front, the tables turned. With 7km to go, the gap was down to 7 seconds but the front trio had an extra gear and managed to reopen it a bit to 10 seconds.

 

Paolini closes it down

Ruijgh was unfortunate to puncture out of the group but managed to chase back in time for the finish. As opposed to this, Rosseler never got back when he paid the prize for his earlier attack and fell off the pace. The peloton was now more than two minutes behind as Wanty was the only team chasing.

 

The front trio lost all hopes when Paolini took a huge turn on the front that ended their days 3km from the finish. Paolini, Ladagous, Porsev and Delage kept the pace high to avoid any further attacks while the sprinters gathered behind them.

 

OPQS kick into action

With 1.5km to go, Omega Pharma-Quick Step hit the front with Vermote, Andrew Fenn and Steegmans while the Lampre train of Cimolai, Richeze and Moldolo moved up on their right hand side. Van Keirsbulck made a solo attack with 800m to go but surprisingly it was his teammate Fenn who closed it down.

 

That was when Richeze took off with Modolo on his wheel and he delivered his Italian sprinter perfectly on the front. No one had any match to his turn of speed and so the Italian took the fifth win of his season while Steegmans took over the overall lead.