RadioShack dominates race against the clock in West Flemish stage race once again
Sébastien Rosseler (RadioShack) secured overall victory in the Driedaagse De Panne-Koksijde with a flying performance in this afternoon’s 14.7km time trial around De Panne. The Belgian completed the course in a time of 18’31”, 14 seconds faster than both Lieuwe Westra (Vacansoleil) and RadioShack teammate Michal Kwiatkowski.
Rosseler started the stage 10 seconds off the race lead and, crucially 8 seconds behind Westra, meaning he wins the race by 6 seconds over the Dutchman.
Only 56 riders surviving this morning’s epic, windy, rainy stage, which meant that many of the favourites for the time trial, including British champion Bradley Wiggins (Team Sky) were eliminated. The 14.7km course was based on the seafront promenade and straight boulevards of the North Sea resort, meaning that, while the morning’s rain had passed, the riders were exposed to the same blustery wind that they had been subjected to earlier.
The first rider to start was one of this morning’s big aggressors Boy Van Poppel (UnitedHealthcare), he passed the intermediate sprint point at 10.1km in 13’23”, which was to hold up for a little under 2 minutes until teammate Jake Keough went through in 13’21”; this was eclipsed very shortly though, by Matt Brammeier (HTC-Highroad) who passed in 13’04”.
Van Poppel was able to hold his momentum through to the finish, to cross the line in a highly respectable 20’15”; Keough was faster than his Dutch teammate once more though, going 7 seconds faster in 20’08”.
Brammeier though, had clearly timed his effort even better than the two UnitedHealthcare riders, increasing his lead over both to finish in 19’41”, fully 27 seconds quicker.
A number of riders, many of them sprinters with no interest in the overall result, started and finished without troubling the best time of Brammeier. Another of the morning’s heroes though, in the shape or Federico Canuti (Colnago-CSF), whose late attack had only been pulled in with 2km to go, went through the intermediate checkpoint in 12’47”. The Italian managed to hold his pace to the finish to post a new best time of 19’22”, a full 19 seconds quicker than the Irishman.
Reflecting the relative indifference of some of the sprinters in the time trial and overall classification, Gerard Ciolek (Quick Step) cruised round the course without seeming to make much of a effort; the team minivan that was following him had to do a quick reversing manoeuvre to get around the tight turn at the stage’s mid point; it managed to get around after a quick bit of reversing though, and the German finished in 21’43” and very much last place.
As Canuti came into the finishing straight it was clear that he had managed to hold his pace from the intermediate sprint and crossed the line in 19’22”, 19 seconds faster than Brammeier.
Just to prove that not all of the sprinters were as disinterested in the result as Ciolek, André Greipel (OmegaPharma-Lotto) and John Degenkolb (HTC-Highroad) both posted respectable times, just 20 and 45 seconds slower than Canuti, respectively.
After a long wait, Maciej Bodnar (Liquigas-Cannondale) finally went faster than Canuti at the intermediate checkpoint with 12’43”. Shortly afterwards Greg Henderson (Team Sky) knocked Canuti off the top spot at the finish; the New Zealander’s time of 19’22” was just a tenth of a second quicker than the Italian, after being 3 seconds slower at the intermediate check.
Rick Flens (Rabobank) flew through the intermediate point in 12’31”, while at the finish Bodnar also posted 19’22”, just over half a second outside Henderson’s time, to go into third place.
Flens was not going to allow the trio to sit at the top of the board for long though as he flew through 21 seconds faster in 19’01”; Lagadnous (FDJ) then incredibly became the fourth rider to finish in 19’22”.
Michal Kwiatkowski (RadioShack) went fastest at the intermediate checkpoint with 12’26”; shortly afterwards the best time at the finish was lowered, first by Andriy Grivko (Astana), with 18’55”, then by 2008 World time trial champion Bert Grabsch (HTC-Highroad) with 18’53”.
Clearly on fire though, Sébastien Rosseler (RadioShack) blitzed past the intermediate point in 12’16”, just as teammate Michal Kwiatkowski went fastest at the finish with 18’45”; this was pushed very close by former French time trial champion Sylvain Chavanel (Quick Step), but a gearing problem in the finishing straight saw him finish 4 seconds slower than the Pole.
There was drama with just a few kilometres to go as Niki Terpstra (Quick Step) crashed. The Dutchman was sat up, but had a number of people around him, suggesting that he may have incurred an injury that will jeopardise his Ronde van Vlaanderen participation this coming Sunday. He was later seen leaving the Quick Step bus with his arm in a sling, suggesting that he may have broken his collarbone.
Despite having to check his speed slightly to get around Terpstra and the Quick Step car, Rosseler blitzed through the finish in 18’31”.
Lieuwe Westra (Vacansoleil), who lost his leader’s jersey to Bert De Backer (Skil-Shimano) this morning, thanks to an intermediate sprint bonus, looked to be the bet of the overall contenders; the Dutchman crossed the intermediate checkpoint in 12’27”, just 11 seconds slower than Rosseler. He only led the Belgian by 8 seconds after the morning stage though, and so needed to find a few seconds in the closing kilometres to prevent the RadioShack rider taking the race.
Romain Feillu saw his chances of a strong overall finish disappear with a lacklustre time of 20’41”; Dmitriy Muravyev (RadioShack) put in a creditable 19’01” though, but still missed out on the overall race podium.
Sprinting down the finishing straight, Westra was forced to watch the race slip through his fingers, eventually finishing in 18’45” to take second on the stage but slip to second behind Rosseler in the overall rankings.
De Backer, last to start, was last to finish in 20’15”, slipping him a long way down the overall standings.