Leopard Trek’s German stagiere wins Frank Vandenbroucke memorial race
Rüdiger Selig (Leopard Trek) won the centenary edition of the Binche-Tournai-Binche – Memorial Frank Vandenbroecke to pick up his first ever professional victory. The 22-year-old German, who has been riding as a stagiere for the Luxembourg ProTeam since the beginning of August, beat the far more experienced Baden Cooke (Saxo Bank-SunGard) into second in a bunch sprint at the end of the 202km race. Another stagiere, World under-23 silver medallist Adrien Petit (Cofidis) – who beat Selig into fourth place in Copenhagen – finished third.
“I’m incredibly happy, obviously, and I’m also surprised,” said Selig. “As a stagiere and a sprinter, I know I’m in a position where anything can happen. I anticipate the worst and hope for the best. My result today shows that I have continued to improve late in the season with fourth at Worlds and third in Franco-Belge and now the win today.”
Based on a long loop around the Walloon countryside, close to the French border, followed by four laps of a 16.2km circuit, there were very few natural obstacles on the course. The main difficulty for the peloton to deal with was the strong wind that blew across the course.
“It was heavy racing today between the wind and the attacks,” Selig explained. “I actually got dropped a few times. Luckily, the peloton slowed down between surges, and I was able to make it up to the group again each time.”
The race was dominated by a large breakway group, consisting of David Boucher (Omega Pharma-Lotto), Julien Vermote and Dries Devenyns (both Quick Step), Rick Flens (Rabobank), Maxim Belkov and Willem Wauters (both Vacansoleil-DCM), Nico Sijmens (Cofidis), Simon Geschke (Skil-Shimano), Tony Hurel (Europcar) and Kevin Hulsmans (Donckers Koffie-Jelly Belly). The ten riders escaped just before the halfway point of the course but were never allowed to get more than three minutes ahead, and were reeled in on the finishing
Vermote and Boucher resisted, but were soon captured, and their attack was followed by one frome Maarten Tjallingii (Rabobank) and Cyril Gautier (Europcar). In the final lap Ben Hermans (RadioShack) and Bram Tankink (Rabobank) tried their luck, but were pulled back in the final kilometre and the final sprint was inevitable.
“In the final two kilometres, there is a short cobblestone climb,” explained Selig. “I lost a few positions here. From there, the road curved back onto normal asphalt. I was able to make it back to the top group of sprinters at this point.”
“The last 250 metres were again on cobblestones,” he continued. “This time we went slightly down on the cobbles instead of up. I allowed a gap to open, and I thought my race was over. The other guys on the front kept going faster and faster. Then, they hesitated for a small moment. I was still on my top speed attempting to regain contact, and I kept going at this same rhythm. I passed them all on the right as they were looking at each other.
“They hesitated, and I won.”