Kloeden caught in final kilometre, Engoulvent retains yellow jersey
André Greipel repeated his performance of yesterday and scooped up another win in the Skoda Tour of Luxembourg. The Lotto-Belisol rider beat Ben Swift (Sky Procycling) by over a bike length, with Jurgen Roelandts (Lotto Belisol) third. French rider Jimmy Engoulvent, who won the prologue on Wednesday, keeps the yellow leader’s jersey.
Gripel’s ride netted his fifth win in nine days and his eleventh of the season. “It may look simple to the people watching, but it’s not,” the German said after the finish. “The final was hard but in the end all went well.”
The first hour of today’s 183.9 kilometers long stage from Schifflange to Leudelange went at a very high pace. The peloton reached an average of almost 50 kilometers per hour as Radioshack kept the pressure on and let no one escape. Kim Andersen: “We are a Luxembourg team so this race is very important to us. Yesterday we tried to make the race tough with the wind but it didn’t work out. We’ll try again today,” Radioshack’s directeur sportif said before the start.
After an hour into the race two riders from smaller teams were allowed to break away. Kevin van Melsen from Accent Jobs-Willems Veranda’s and Gediminas Kaupas of local team Differdange quickly gained a lead on the bunch who were tired after the fast first hour. The two had seven minutes before Radioshack, Team Sky and Lotto-Belisol started the chase.
In the last of the three local loops Van Melsen and Kaupas were caught. The sprinter teams kept everything together for a new bunch sprint. Before the final kilometer Andreas Klöden of Radioshack-Nissan-Trek attacked. “The only goal here is to win the yellow jersey on Sunday, everything else is a bonus. Last year we won with Gerdemann. I don’t care who of the team will take the overall, as long as it is a Radioshack-Nissan-Trek rider'” Andersen said.
Klöden was caught in the final, 300 meters straight road to the finish. There it was Lotto-Belisol’s André Greipel who triumphed ahead of Swift. His team-mate Jurgen Roelandts, who has only been back in competition for two weeks after a broken vertebra in the Tour Down Under, got a good third place.
Tomorrow the Tour of Luxembourg has its key stage from Eschweiler to Differdange, running over 205,4 kilometers. It has seven categorised climbs including the Col de l’Europe, a 7.6% climb which is included in the 9.5 kilometres long local circuit. Traditionally the overall classification will be determined in this stage.