In spite of a Tinkoff-Saxo attack in the cross wind,  today’s 175 kilometer long third stage of Tour de l’Eurometropole between Blankenberge and Middelkerke was concluded in another hectic bunch sprint. Tinkoff-Saxo’s Matti Breschel finished 7th while Theo Bos (Belkin) was the first to cross the finish line.

The stage was dominated by a five rider breakaway but as the peloton reached the cross wind section of the stage, Tinkoff-Saxo went to the front of the pack and picked up the pace to split the field. But just like the two previous stages of the race, the sprinter teams were in total control of things.

Even though the Tinkoff-Saxo attack did open up the race with a few small gaps, the powerful unison of the sprinter teams behind was superb and brought all riders back with 3 kilometers to go.

In the frantic sprint for the line, Matti Breschel finished 7th and Belkin’s Theo Bos was the fastest of all fast riders.

“Our ambition was to stir things up in the cross wind but the wind wasn’t strong enough and as we were going through forests and small towns during this section, the impact was too small. Therefore, the sprinter teams were able to control the events and the stage was brought to a bunch sprint conclusion. Tomorrow’s stage holds a hilly local lap with the opportunity to gather enough bonus seconds for Matti to finish in the top-5 overall. But everything has to work out for us and the competition is hard,” said DS Tristan Hoffman to the Tinkoff-Saxo website.