Three weeks after thieves struck the Garmin-Sharp team and stole a large number of bicycles during the Tour of the Mediterranean race, the RadioShack Leopard team has suffered the same sort of crime at the Driedaagse van West-Vlaanderen race in Belgium.
A total of eight bikes were taken from the team truck, as well as several sets of wheels plus a mechanic’s tool set.
Team competitor Ben Hermans announced the news on Twitter this morning, confirming that the team will continue. “Bikes stolen this night. However we will be racing! Lot's of work for the mechanics now,” he wrote.
Details are scarce about how the theft happened but when the Garmin-Sharp bikes were taken, the team car parked tight against the back of the truck as an additional obstacle to entry was moved by those seeking to gain access.
The Radioshack Leopard team’s determination to continue in the race will be sharpened by its strong showing in yesterday’s prologue. Five of its riders finished in the top twenty, with Tiago Machado second, Stijn Devolder sixth, Bob Jungels fourteenth, Jesse Sergent sixteenth and Ben King nineteenth.
The team said afterwards that it believed defending champion Jesse Sergent could have won the prologue, but that his chances of fighting Kristof Vandewalle (Omega Pharma-Quick Step) for the victory were ruined by mechanical problems and a near crash suffered during the test.
Today’s second stage of the Driedaagse van West-Vlaanderen runs 175.4 kilometres from Brugge to Harelbeke.