photo credits @ Twitter/Tour de Wallonie
Tour de Wallonie Stage 1: Terpstra Wins Out of Two-Man Attack
With 24 kilometers remaining, Niki Terpstra (Etixx – Quick-Step) did what he loves to do best- attack!
Indeed, the Dutch rider claimed the opening stage of this year’s Tour de Wallonie, after attacking from 13-rider escape group, along with Victor Campenaerts (Topsport Vlaanderen – Baloise).
From there, the duo succeeded in maintaining almost a minute lead all the way to finish, where Terpstra launched his attack during the closing 200 meters to nix Campenaerts by 4 seconds on the line.
Meanwhile, Yauheni Hutarovich (Bretagne-Séché) rounded out the podium in 3rd, at 21 seconds behind the leaders.
Today’s victory marked Terpstra’s 5th of the season, and Etixx – Quick-Step’s 38th.
For tomorrow’s stage, riders will face a 181.4 kilometer route from Beaufays to Bassenge, which will feature no fewer than 9 climbs, along with 30 kilometer finishing circuit.
“For the entire day it was bad weather, rain and plenty of wind,” Terpstra said. “We started with an uphill and then there was the typical false flat roads in Wallonie. At that point of the parcours we went away with 14 riders, including my teammate Martin Velits. Martin did a great job keeping the speed high in the breakaway. We had good collaboration in the group. At about 24 kilometers to go, on a slight uphill, I attacked and Campenaerts followed. We went up the road together and in the end I won. It’s really nice to win for the first time in this Dutch Champion Jersey, and to open Tour de Wallonie with a victory. It’s a good start for the GC, but we will see day-by-day what we can do with the overall. At the moment we will enjoy this victory, and starting tomorrow we will see what can happen.”
Top 20 Finishers
1 Niki Terpstra (Ned) Etixx – Quick-Step 4:49:39 2 Victor Campenaerts (Bel) Topsport Vlaanderen – Baloise 0:00:04 3 Yauheni Hutarovich (Blr) Bretagne-Séché Environnement 0:00:21 4 Boris Vallee (Bel) Lotto Soudal 5 Antoine Demoitie (Bel) Wallonie – Bruxelles 6 Sébastien Turgot (Fra) AG2R La Mondiale 7 Sergey Lagutin (Rus) Team Katusha 8 Loic Vliegen (Bel) BMC Racing Team 9 Antoine Warnier (Bel) Wallonie – Bruxelles 0:00:26 10 Viacheslav Kuznetsov (Rus) Team Katusha 0:01:05 11 Danny Van Poppel (Ned) Trek Factory Racing 12 Jurgen Roelandts (Bel) Lotto Soudal 13 Jonas Vangenechten (Bel) IAM Cycling 14 Rick Zabel (Ger) BMC Racing Team 15 Pieter Serry (Bel) Etixx – Quick-Step 16 Aleksei Tcatevich (Rus) Team Katusha 17 Roy Jans (Bel) Wanty – Groupe Gobert 18 Gijs Van Hoecke (Bel) Topsport Vlaanderen – Baloise 19 Daniel Mclay (GBr) Bretagne-Séché Environnement 0:01:07 20 Edward Theuns (Bel) Topsport Vlaanderen – Baloise
General classification after stage 1
1 Niki Terpstra (Ned) Etixx – Quick-Step 4:49:24 2 Victor Campenaerts (Bel) Topsport Vlaanderen – Baloise 0:00:10 3 Yauheni Hutarovich (Blr) Bretagne-Séché Environnement 0:00:29 4 Boris Vallee (Bel) Lotto Soudal 0:00:33 5 Antoine Demoitie (Bel) Wallonie – Bruxelles 0:00:35 6 Sébastien Turgot (Fra) AG2R La Mondiale 7 Sergey Lagutin (Rus) Team Katusha 0:00:36 8 Loic Vliegen (Bel) BMC Racing Team 9 Antoine Warnier (Bel) Wallonie – Bruxelles 0:00:41 10 Viacheslav Kuznetsov (Rus) Team Katusha 0:01:20 11 Danny Van Poppel (Ned) Trek Factory Racing 12 Jurgen Roelandts (Bel) Lotto Soudal 13 Jonas Vangenechten (Bel) IAM Cycling 14 Rick Zabel (Ger) BMC Racing Team 15 Pieter Serry (Bel) Etixx – Quick-Step 16 Aleksei Tcatevich (Rus) Team Katusha 17 Roy Jans (Bel) Wanty – Groupe Gobert 18 Gijs Van Hoecke (Bel) Topsport Vlaanderen – Baloise 19 Daniel Mclay (GBr) Bretagne-Séché Environnement 0:01:22 20 Edward Theuns (Bel) Topsport Vlaanderen – Baloise
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