Actually, things are going pretty good for Brian Vandborg at the moment, and his spirit is high, even though the Discovery Channel team had quit a bit of accidents during yesterday’s stage from Waremme to Eupen.
“We really had bad luck yesterday. Gusev had a flat tyre three times and crashed. So, we had to use quite a bit of effort to get him back with 20 km to go,” Brian Vandborg tells from Belgium where he is riding the ENECO Tour. ”And I almost goes down too as he crashes. If we hadn’t had to spent so much energy on the mishabs we would probably have gotten a better result. Gusev and I could have been among the seven first riders yesterday. But, if and if … After all, my time was corrected today, so I got a time 17 seconds better,” he adds.
Today’s stage was a 199,2 km long and rather flat stage from Antwerpen to Knokke-Heist. And the weather was nice. 24 degrees and sunny, and the Danish rider feels that he is getting better and better. ”My form is good, even if I didn’t feel remarkable today. I think that I have been eaten too little the last couple of days,” he explains.
Food deficit is bad when the racing is as hard as it is, and for Brian Vandborg it is a matter of re-energizing for the upcoming days. ”Tomorrows stage will be just as today. The next three stages will be that way. But, today the speed was high. We rode with an average speed of 47.5 km/h the first two hours.”
”There are always windy here, and besides it is always stressful to ride in Belgium. There are still 50 riders who have a chance in the overall, and who have to stay up front, and then there are 10 sprinters and 50 wannabe sprinters, so it is definitely a dog fight,” he laughs.
At the moment the Danish rider is 21st in the overall with 1:02 minutes to the leading rider, and he hasn’t given up the hope of a good result. “It could have been better, but it is still possible to aim for a top 10.”
The Discovery Channel team is primarily riding for Vladimir Gusev, but there are definately also room for Brian Vandborg to ride his own chance, if the opportunity should arise.
Tomorrows stage presents 170 km from Knokke-Heist to Putte, and for Vandborg the main objective is to stay in front with the peloton. The riders that are not within the best in the overall are going to join if a larger group gets away, but otherwise it is primarily a matter of taking it easy looking ahead to the TT on Wednesday.