Spring Classics: GB 2 – 0 The World
The Flanders classics have started. Omloop het Nieuwsblad on Saturday, Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne on Sunday. For the British riders it started well.
And what a fantastic finish was that, eh? I have to admit that I was feeling sorry for Ian Stannard on the closing kilometres. I thought “Three Ettix riders, two of them non-other than Boonen and Terpstra? They will have him for breakfast”.
Well, they didn’t. Actually they messed it up, royally! Stannard (Sky), Tom Boonen (Ettix), Nikki Terpstra (Ettix) and Stijn Vandenbergh (yes, you guessed it; Ettix) are 45-50 seconds ahead of the peloton. The breakaway formed at around 40km to go. So at around 5km to go, Terpstra increases his tempo for Vandenbergh to leave a gap. Stannard closes the gap in no time. Then Boonen attacks. At that point he could had won the race if only Stannard had not been resting for 35km, drafting behind the Ettix riders. So Stannard slowly closes the gap with 3.5km to go whilst he is looking behind him to see Terpstra having another go. Where it looked like that Vandenbergh could box in Stannard and delay him for 4-5 seconds, he goes after Terpstra! That’s were the race was lost, or won, depends how you see it. Stannard caught Terpstra, and counter-attacked. Vandenbergh blew, Boonen was following behind them by about 3 seconds all the time and in the last 300 meters Terpstra goes ahead. Stannard is following and with less than 50 meters to the line he gives all he’s got and passes Terpstra on the line. Boonen crossed the line third shaking his head.
Patrick Lefevere (Ettix’s DS), I am sure, had a few things to say to his riders. I mean, the team hierarchy is known well in advance. You do all you can to help anyway you can your team leaders. Simple. What was Vandenbergh thinking? Afterwards Lefevere made some statements about Stannard not pulling his weight in the breakaway group. I am sure that Lefevere wouldn’t be advising any of his riders to pull if they were in a breakaway with 3 riders from another team.
The following day on the closing kilometres of Kuurne-Brussles-Kuurne Katusha were controlling the race quite well. At around 4km to go, Philippe Gilbert (BMC) had a go and managed to build a gap of 11 seconds but Sky came in front as well as Ettix, LottoNL-Jumbo and Cofidis and closed the gap at less than a kilometre from the finish.
It seemed that Alexander Kristoff (Katusha) would take the sprint, but in the end Mark Cavendish (Ettix) beat him to it with Elia Viviani (Sky) third. I am sure that put a smile on Lefevere’s face and the Ettix riders heaved a sigh of relief as they came home with the goods.
As for the British riders, they definitely came home with the goods. Cavendish is looking at Milan-San Remo, Wiggins at Paris-Roubaix. It seems to me that after winning the Grandest of Tours twice, the British can show their worth in the Spring Classics.