Ramon Sinkeldam (Giant-Shimano) again proved that he ca mix it up when the best sprinters in the world when he finished a close second behind Arnaud Demare in today's second stage of the Tour de Picardie. The Dutchman now moves into second overall on a day whn his teammate Tom Dumoulin took the mountains jersey.

Ramon Sinkeldam has taken a step closer to his first win of the season today, sprinting to second place on the second stage of the Tour de Picardie. A time gap in the sprint also means that Sinkeldam moves up to second overall behind today’s stage winner, Arnaud Démare (FDJ).

The stage was full of attacks and Team Giant-Shimano made sure they were on the fore-foot from the off. The team unfortunately were one man down on the start line today as Brian Bulgac did not start due to a fractured thumb suffered in the last crash on yesterday’s stage.

Being a man short did not deter the team from getting stuck in and both Tom Dumoulin and Cheng Ji slipped away in a strong 15-man move that made a big impact on the stage. The group proved slightly too big however and attacks put an end to their time out front with the front of the race coming back together with 20km to go.

Dumoulin had done enough in the day’s breakaway to take over the lead in the king of the mountains classification, before then helping to set up Sinkeldam for the finish together with Dries Devenyns, Jonas Ahlstrand and Nikias Arndt.

The race stayed together on the run in and on the uphill sprint finish Démare proved his speed once again but Sinkeldam was a very close second, with the two putting a significant gap between themselves and third place.

After the stage, Team Giant-Shimano coach confirmed what was a good stage for Team Giant-Shimano:

“The guys rode well today and second just behind Démare is another strong sprint from Ramon. It was good to see Cheng in the break today together with Tom who is returning to racing here after a short break.

“Cheng couldn’t hold on as long as Tom, but Tom did enough to take the KOM jersey which is a nice reward for his efforts out front today. Once the race was all back together the other guys took over, Dries, Jonas and Nikias to position Ramon for the final which was a short uphill sprint.

“Ramon is in a good position now so we can focus on defending this on tomorrow’s final stage and seeing how we can do at the finish once again.”

King of the mountains leader, Tom Dumoulin added:

“I was feeling strong today but the break never really worked too well together so I decided to go for the KOM points as I knew we were not going to stay away and I didn’t want to come out of it with nothing.

“The final was really hectic and I was pretty tired but I helped the guys into position as much as I could before the final few kilometres where the other guys took over to pilot Ramon through to the finishing sprint. It’s good to get back out front again and test the legs and also to see the team riding really well togehter here too.”