The speed was high on the 170,8 km long 3rd stage of Eneco Tour from Knokke-Heist to Putte i ENECO Tour, and to Brian Vandborg it meant another stressful day at the ’office’. ”I felt better today. My stomach is still giving me a hard time, but I think that I am going to get it under control,” he says.
”It was fast like Hell all day with lots of punctures due to shitty belgian roads, a few crashes at the end, but not as bad as yesterday. Also, the wind was not as bad,” he adds.
Even though the Discovery Channel team had their share of flat tyres, they were spared of major accidents, and except for Gianni Meersman and Volodymir Bileka, who crossed the finishing line 1:25 and 2:38 minutes after, all Vandborg’s team mates came in with the peloton. Gianni Meersman had been part of the break and Volodymir Bileka had worked all day for Gusev.
“As said previously, the speed was high again, but finally there was a break with my fellow Dane, Klostergaard, but Lotto knew that they would end up working all day, since there were nobody in the break who posed a threat in the overall, and therefore Cofidis didn’t care. So, just as we sat in the peloton talking a bit after the speedy start, it was stretched out again and a group got away in which there was a guy who was a little over a minute after in the overall, and then the sprinter teams knew that the classification rider’s teams would help.”
While Vandborg didn’t feel especially fine yesterday, things went much better today. ”It was stressful, but I am on top again,” he says.
Tomorrow, a 182 km long stage from Maldegem to Terneuzen waits for the riders, in which the riders come into the Netherlands, and even though it looks like a relatively easy stage on the paper, the flat profile could deceive the unprepared. The wind could be a decisive factor. At the coast there is always wind, and if you are not constantly aware, you could wind up being sat if an attack is launched.