Two Out Of Two For Kristoff In Three Days De Panne

01 April 2015 04:39

Alexander Kristoff of Katusha made it two out of two with a second successive victory in the Three Days of De Panne race in Belgium.

The Driedaagse De Panne in Flanders had for its second stage, a 217kms long stage from Zottegem, where the first stage won by Katusha's Alexander Kristoff, to Koksude.

Twelve riders in Capiot, De Troyer, Nic Dougall, Druyts, Dufrasne, Engoulvent, Mortensen, Pfingsten, Pozzo, Sütterlin, Tedeschi and Vingerling, were in an early break for a stage which had five climbs including the Kemmelberg.

They took a lead of four minutes which had extended to 7.05 with 27kms gone but was down to six minutes, some fifty five kilometres later.

The gap went out to 7.16 with 101kms left for the escapers and dropped to 1.53 with seventy five kilometres left on a windy day.

The gap had dropped to 32 seconds when the front group started on three laps of a 12.9km cicruit with Michael Vingerling taking the three points for the intermediate sprint.

Riders tried to get to the escapers with Sean De Bie and Bonnet gaining four seconds on the peloton as they crossed the line for the second time.

Vingerling took the third sprint as the front group who were soon joined by a number of riders including Bak, Bystrom, Van Keirsbulck, Knees and Haller.

This allowed the peloton to catch up and with nineteen kilometres left, everyone was back together.

Coenen, Malaguti and Mortensen started a new attack and got 18 seconds clear which was twenty seconds by the time they started on the final lap.

Coenen, Malaguti and Mortensen were still out front with six kilometres left as Team Sky led the peloton.

Mortensen dropped back and with 2.2kms left Coenen and Malagutti were caught.

Team Sky were on the front again with Bradley Wiggins taking a big turn before pulling off under the flam rouge.

FDJ had a rider on the front but it was Alexander Kristoff who came up and went down the centre to win in 5.32.51, ahead of Elia Viviani of Team Sky, followed by Archbold, Demoitie, Modolo, Sbaragl, R Kreder, Renshaw, Cort and Andriato.

"It was not easy due to the wind and my team did a great job getting me in position to win," Kristoff said after the race.

"It was a technical finish and with 200ms, I went and I knew it was a hard race and thankfully there were not too many fresh legs today. I will see if I can keep the jersey until Sunday."

Kristoff leads the race by sixteen seconds from Devolder.

Source: DSG