Omega Pharma - Quickstep rider Niki Terpstra took a fantastic solo win in Dwars door Vlaanderen ahead of Tyler Farrar (Garmin-Sharp) and Borut Bozic (Astana). For the second time in his career, Terpstra won the second victory of the race and proved himself as ready to help Tom Boonen during the cobbled classics.
Team Sky SD Servais Knaven whose best rider was Ian Stannard (15th +00:17):
"Terpstra was really strong," he admitted. "You saw four guys and an entire peloton chasing him and the time wasn’t coming back. He was the strongest guy today.
"Ian was riding really well. It wasn’t up to him to chase everything down but we saw Terpstra go past him and make it to the finish. That’s the way it is sometimes.
"Salvatore crashed hard and had to stop racing afterwards. CJ did a really good ride being in the early break. It was important for the team to have someone up there. Christian (Knees) helped Ian out all day and did a great job. Gabba (Rasch) had a flat tyre at a really bad moment and wasn’t able to get back on as the pace was so high.
"We'll be back on the start line at E3 on Friday with a full squad and we're looking forward to another race."
Trek Factory Racing SD Dirk Demol whose best rider was Danny Van Poppel (28th +00:17):
“It was a very fast first hour and then around 60k the breakaway went with Markel and Silvestre. This was good for us as it took the pressure off the team in the back. Jesse [Sergent] crashed, but he is okay. Orica [GreenEdge] and Movistar were not in the break so they began to chase. Unfortunately, Fabio had a mechanical in the breakaway and we had only one follow car, and it was behind the bunch at that point, so he was unable to get back to the front group.
“On the Katteberg Stijn crashed and he broke both the cleats of his shoes. It was complicated to have that fixed while holding on to the car, so it took about 20k to bring him back to the bunch. The breakaway started falling apart on the Kwaremont and then on the Paterberg Terpstra went, catching the last of the breakaway riders and that was it.
“Stijn did a great counterattack to try and catch him but unfortunately his group was caught by 40-45 riders at the end. We had Danny [van Poppel] and Markel, Boy [van Poppel] and Jasper [Stuyven] still in the group at the end, but Danny did not have the legs to sprint anymore. It’s too bad that we don’t have anyone in the top 10 even though the condition of the team is very good. We had some bad luck, but the performance by the team was very good so we cannot complain. And there are more races to come!”
Team Katusha SD Gennady Mikhaylov whose best rider was Alexander Kristoff (13th +00:17):
“The team did a nice race. I can mention young Russian riders, especially Viacheslav Kuznetsov, who finished in the leading group and provided great support to Alexander Kristoff. Alex is still recovering after Milano – Sanremo, so the main thing for him today was to do the race confidently and to prepare for the upcoming WorldTour races,” - explained Gennady Mikhaylov.
Tinkoff-Saxo SD Lars Michaelsen whose best rider was Michael Mørkøv (16th +00:17):
“I think we can be satisfied with the way we rode the race. First, we had Jay McCarthy in the big initial breakaway with 22 riders and in the finale, both Michael Mørkøv and Nicki Sørensen were waiting for the chance to make a move. Nicki chose the right moment and the right guys to follow and I’m just sorry that they weren’t able to make it to the line before the peloton,” said Michaelsen.
Michael Mørkøv (16th +00:17):
“I think we can be content even though we didn’t get a result. Our only chance was to hit the right break and if Nicki, Valverde and Devolder couldn’t make it, I don’t think anyone could,” said Mørkøv.
AG2R La Mondiale SD Julien Jurdie whose best rider was Yauheni Hutarovich (10th +00:17):
“The team was one more time at the front race with Gediminas (Bagdonas) who is currently in a great shape. The group is physically well and there’s a real team spirit. There are still some points we need to improve and we have to progress but it goes the right way. This is an encouraging day before important races looming on the horizon.”
MTN-Qhubeka SD Jens Zemke whose best rider was Martin Reimer (60th +04:32):
“We had very few riders here today and so the max we could do was get into the break and see from there. Songezo got into the break and so we can say our goal for today was achieved.”
Team NetApp-Endura SD André Schulze whose best rider was Andreas Schillinger (26th +00:17):
“Even though we didn’t finish with a better outcome, we can still be satisfied with the race for the most part. Our guys followed through with our goal of being represented in the lead group and getting involved on the final stretch. Unfortunately we were missing some guys at the end to help Andreas Schillinger, otherwise we might have had a better outcome. Daniel Schorn did a good job in the lead group, but his energy ran out after 100 kilometers. Ralf Matzka and Michael Schwarzmann rode well, but were unable to get into the group heading into the hills."
Pieter Van HERCK 33 years | today |
Abraham SWANEPOEL 38 years | today |
Robert BOVENHUIS 37 years | today |
Mohamad Faiz MOHD HATA 25 years | today |
Ryo HAYASHI 31 years | today |
© CyclingQuotes.com