The final day of the Three Days of De Panne includes traditionally two half stages. BORA – ARGON 18 focused on the short sprint stage in the morning. Shane Archbold couldn’t repeat yesterday’s success after 111 kilometers as he had to settle for 14th place.

Alexander Kristoff (Katusha) repeated the previous days by winning the sprint again. After the ITT over 14 kilometers, he also stayed in front of the tour’s general classification. Since BORA – ARGON 18 lined-up with no real time trial specialist, the fight against the clock was rather an obligatory exercise for the team.

“Out of the two half stages we concentrated completely on the one in the morning. We tried to work again for Shane. In the end, it didn’t work out as planned. The guys got lost in the final, so Shane was on his own on the last two kilometers. He tried to find his own way to the front. Unfortunately he wasn’t in the position in the last corner that was needed to succeed today”, comments Enrico Poitschke on the morning stage to the Bora-Argon website.

The short Belgian stage race was the perfect preparation for the Tour of Flanders that starts on Sunday. All seven riders of BORA – ARGON 18 who lined-up in De Panne will also start at the WorldTour monument. German classics expert Paul Voss will join them.

“Paul and Scott [Thwaites] are both riders who could represent the team in front for long parts of the race on Sunday. But our team for the Ronde was weakened. Jan [Barta] and Daniel [Schorn] have to skip the race – a fact, that is hard to compensate for us. Only a puncture prevented Jan from a top result last year. And Daniel has proven his classics qualities numerous times. We hoped that both make a step in their development so they could play a role in the finale. But both have to pause in the upcoming weeks, so we had to adapt our tactics and expectations. It would be too ambitious to expect from the team to compete for a top ranking on Sunday“, Poitschke looks ahead to the Tour of Flanders.