Tinkoff-Saxo’s squad in Eneco Tour focused on saving energy with half of the team coming off the back of racing in Denmark and Poland, while the second part of riders aimed at getting back into race rhythm. The team supported Matti Breschel in the final sprint but a puncture in the race finale cost energy.
 
While Elia Viviani took the win in the bunch sprint decision, Matti Breschel lost positions on the finishing straight after having held a good position going into the last kilometer. Tinkoff-Saxo sports director Patxi Vila assesses:
 
“We tried to put Matti in a good place for the final sprint. That was our main objective and Trusov did a great job in the final kilometers. Matti has shown impressive signs at the Tour of Denmark with two stage wins but with 20km to go, he had a flat tire, which cost a lot of energy. The sprint was very unorganized as a whole and Matti was in a good position before the final kilometer but he had spent a bit too much energy to have that extra punch in the final 300 meters”, says Patxi Vila.

Stage 1 of Eneco Tour consisted of 183.5km of racing in absolutely flat terrain. Patxi Vila tells that the team was satisfied with the absence of wind on the stage.
 
“Half of the team was racing in Denmark and Poland just two-three days ago and a rider like Rogers hasn’t raced since the Tour. So we didn’t want to push them too much and we focused on saving energy and avoiding crashes. We had several tumbles in the later part of the stage but our guys were well positioned and none of them crashed. It can be very windy here at the Dutch coastal line, but today we had no wind and that actually suited us well, as the stage became less hard. Tomorrow, we will gradually increase the intensity, as we need to be there in the second, hard part of the Eneco Tour”, finishes Patxi Vila.