Eneco Tour opened with a flat 183.5-kilometer stage Monday and as expected it all came down to a bunch sprint where Danny van Poppel sprinted to a close second, missing the victory by inches from Elia Viviani (Sky).

The roads leading into the finale were narrow, and a brisk wind blew from the right side as 160 riders raced full-speed into the last kilometers in a fierce and thorny battle for position.

No team was able to take full control and it was a swirling mess of riders that roared under the red kite signifying the final kilometer. 

André Greipel (Lotto-Soudal) begin his sprint early but the powerful German couldn’t hold his speed, allowing the sprinters waiting in the wings to come over the top, including Danny van Poppel, who was sitting nicely in Viviani’s slipstream.

Van Poppel made his move to come around Viviani and was gaining ground fast, however, he ran out of real estate and even a last ditch bike throw couldn’t add the mere inches he needed.

“I was on Viviani’s wheel and he went over Greipel,” van Poppel explained. “I felt a lot of power in my legs and I wanted to go over Viviani, but it was so fast – at the end I had 74km/h maximum speed – and I was spinning out my biggest gear [54x11 -ed]. My gear was a little bit too small to go over him, but it was still really close.

“Viviani is also a track rider so he is good in the fast sprints and normally I am better in the uphill sprints or ones of real power. It’s hard to finish second and so close to winning - I try not to think about that too much; there will be more chances.”

Trek Factory Racing brought its two sprinters and plenty of fast finishers to the Eneco Tour, which should prove fruitful for a race with a mix of flat and punchy parcours.

For the opening flat stage it was decided that Giacomo Nizzolo would be designated finisher, however, the typical chaos of racing small Dutch roads peppered with ‘road furniture’ in the local laps changed the tactics, and the team wisely opted to play two sprinter cards instead of one.

Danny van Poppel explained, “From the start we made the decision that we would make the sprint for Giacomo but when we saw that the local laps were really dangerous it was decided that everyone would help Giacomo and I would make my own way. In this way, we had two cards to play. I ended up taking the right wheel; I also got a lot of luck and Giacomo didn’t today. Also, in sprinting it is not always who is the fastest, but you also need to be gutsy.”

“The plan was to actually play the card of Giacomo,” echoed director Dirk Demol.“Danny said this morning lets give it a try for Giacomo, but when you prepare the sprint you have to choose one side, and the boys made a mistake – they were there, four in a row, with 1.5-kilomters to go, but they were staying in the middle of the road.  A swarm of riders came from the right and they were stopped and Danny was following the wave on the right and that’s how he was able to make the sprint.

“So on one side it was a nice second place today, but on the other the sprint didn’t go as we were hoping, but we have to be satisfied with the second place especially with the quality of top sprinters here like Greipel and Viviani.  So on one side I am satisfied, and it’s proof again of Danny’s good condition, but on the other side a bit of disappointment – again another second place in a WorldTour race. That’s frustrating."

The day began with a six-man breakaway forming and building up a significant lead, and the rest of the race played out in a normal state of affairs: The break was policed until finally reeled back for good with 16 kilometers to go when the sprinters’ teams assumed the front, battled for position and control, and kept the speeds high to the end.

“From the start six guys in the breakaway and they quickly had seven and half minutes so we were with three other teams putting one rider at the front to control and Eugenio [Alafaci] did a fantastic job today,” continued Demol. “He was pulling for 120 kilometers with three other riders. We took our part in the responsibility to make it a bunch sprint.

“Today was a very stressful stage because everyone is fresh the first day and there was not a lot of wind, but still enough to make a stressful race. There were also two massive crashes, and some other small crashes, and I hope that the most stressful day will be behind us.”