La Machine blitzes flat seaside course to become the first ever French winner of the Three Days
Sylvain Chavanel (Omega Pharma-Quick Step) has won the Driedaagse De Panne-Koksijde, after a supreme display in the final stage 3b time trial around the towns of De Panne and Koksijde. The French road champion blasted around the flat, 14.7km course in a time of 17 minutes 49 seconds, four seconds faster than the next best rider, Lieuwe Westra (Vacansoleil-DCM), and 17 seconds faster than pre-stage favourite, Canadian champion Svein Tuft (GreenEdge).
Chavanel’s victory makes him the first ever French winner of the three-day race in its 36-year history.
“First of all I am super happy with this victory,” said Chavanel. “This year I hadn’t won until now, and a lot of our riders have already won. It was a little disappointing that I was riding well but unable to win a race.
“I am also happy because this victory came in a time trial,” he continued. “I worked a lot during the winter on the time trial because, in the past, I was a three-time French champion time triallist. I used to be a good rider for the time trial, but in the last year, because of my back problem, I wasn’t able to perform well. This winter I worked a lot on my position with the team staff and Specialized staff, and now we begin to see some results. I was 4th in Argentina, 6th in the Stage 1 Paris-Nice time trial, so I am reaching my objectives with my time trial bike.”
Chavanel started the stage just 12 seconds behind race leader, and stage 3a winner Alexander Kristoff (Katusha) – along with 37 other riders – and the Norwegian’s time of 19’04” meant that the Frenchman overhauled him to take the overall race victory. Third place Maciej Bodnar (Liquigas-Cannondale) began the stage five seconds ahead of Chavanel, and his time of 18’08” meant that, while the Polish rider was overtaken by Chavanel, he was fast enough to hold on to his place on the podium behind Westra.
“It’s a good moment when I win in Flanders,” said Chavanel. “It’s always important to win here. Everybody knows the ones in Flanders are the races I love most, one of them being the Tour de Flanders. I am happy with my result, and showed during the week I am in good condition. We are ready to fight on Sunday for Ronde van Vlaanderen.”
While the Frenchman is plainly in top form, and finished second in last year’s Ronde, he is under no illusions as to what his role will be in Sunday’s race.
“On Sunday, Tom [Boonen] will be the captain,” he said. “For sure he is number one, he has already won two times; but I will have an important role with the team as well. It’s important to know that it’s not just Omega Pharma-Quick-Step Cycling Team in the race on Sunday, there are a lot of strong teams able to perform very well.
“It won’t be easy, but we will try to fight.”
Fifty-three riders fail to start and Brian Vandborg finds himself at the head of the race again
With the race winner almost certain to come from the the top 42 riders in the overall standings – all of whom were within those 12 seconds behind Kristoff – many of those that were out of contention elected not to start. Of the 164 finishers of the morning’s road stage, only 120 were given start numbers for the time trial, and of those a further nine didn’t take the start.
Among those to miss the stage were Arnaud Démare (FDJ-BigMat), Roger Kluge (Project 1t4i) and Davide Vigano (Lampre-ISD), who had both crashed in the morning’s closing kilometres, as well as lanterne rouge Ji Cheng (Project 1t41).
In the absence of Cheng, Brian Vandborg (Spidertech p/b C10) – who’d spent most of the previous two stages in breakaway’s – was the first rider off, but his time of 19’32”, was to last less than a minute at the top as fellow breakaway rider Andy Cappelle (Accent.jobs-Willems Verandas) went faster with 19’21”.
Omar Lombardi (Colnago-CSF Inox) lowered the best time further to 19’12”, before Laszlo Bodrogi (Team Type 1-Sanofi) was the first man to go below 19 minutes, posting a fast looking 18’57”. The naturalised-French Hungarian was also to find his stay at the top was a brief one, as just over 30 seconds later Travis Meyer (GreenEDGE) smashed his best time, setting a new mark of 18’32”.
While the time might look good for a possible stage win, the Australian was way out of contention for the overall classification, starting the stage 13’14” behind Kristoff.
Nelson Oliveira (RadioShack-Nissan) 18’33”, just a second behind Meyer, before the Australian was knocked off the top by a flying Artem Ovechkin (RusVelo) in 18’28”.
Svein Tuft leads the charge of the overall contenders
Svein Tuft (GreenEDGE) was the first of a group of 38 riders clustered just 12 seconds behind Kristoff, and was many commentators’ favourite for overall victory. Just two minutes behind the Canadian champion though, was his Australian champion teammate Luke Durbridge, who might be the one to spoil Tuft’s party.
As if to underline the GreenEDGE team’s status as favourite for the race, Tomas Vaitkus knocked Ovechkin off the top with 18’20”, despite having been eight seconds slower than Meyer at halfway.
Tuft and Durbridge were also both slower than Meyer at the 5.1km point; Tuft’s time of 6’37” was just two seconds slower however, 13 seconds ahead of his Durbridge’s surprisingly slow mark, and by far the fastest of the overall contenders so far.
Niki Terpstra (Omega Pharma-Quick Step) matched Tuft’s time of 6’37” at the first check though, just as the Candadian was crossing the line in what looked like it might be the winning time. Tuft’s time of 18’06” blasted his Lithuanian teammate off the top of the leaderboard and set him up as the man to beat in the overall classification.
Durbridge finished shortly afterwards with an unspectacular 18’21”, 15 seconds slower than Tuft, but the Australian champion moved himself into a provisional second place overall.
Terpstra goes close, Westra goes faster, but Chavanel is fastest of all
Terpstra managed to carry his first half speed all the way to the finish, but agonisingly stopped the clock on 18”07”, just 9/10ths of a second outside Tuft’s time. Westra was on the course now though, and had set a time of 6’33” at 5.1km; having already blitzed past Marcel Sieberg (Lotto-Belisol), whose sore back meant that he was riding his ordinary road bike.
Chavanel followed shortly the Dutchman though, dropping the best intermediate time to 6’30”; La Machine was now seven seconds ahead of Tuft, but there was a long way to go on the twisting, exposed course. The Frenchman also caught Sieberg, who’d started three minutes before him, in the closing stages, but got caught up behind Maxime Vantomme (Katusha) in the twisting section that headed into the final kilometres.
Meanwhile, up ahead, Westra was flying across the line in 17’53”, knocking 13 seconds off Tuft’s time, and going into the top spot. Chavanel sprinted around the final corners however, and went four seconds faster still to take his provisional place at the top, with an unbeatable time of 17’49”.
As race leader, and last man to start, Kristoff passed through the 5.1km checkpoint in 6’58”, already conceding 28 seconds to Chavanel, and the race was already lost.
Bodnar was on a much better ride ahead of him though, and caught Steve Chainel (FDJ-BigMat) for a minute. The French cyclocross specialist illegally drafted the Polish rider for a few seconds before being forced to let him go. Bodnar rider had been eleven seconds slower than Chavanel at the checkpoint though, and started the day with just five seconds on the Frenchman, so he faced an uphill struggle to take back the time.
Bodnar crossed the line in a creditable 18’08”; a good time, but not good enough to prevent Chavanel from winning. Chainel, Jacopo Guarnieri (Astana), and Kristoff were still out on the course, but none was going to come close to the Frenchman’s time.
Guarnieri’s time of 19’45” saw the Italian tumble down the classification, while Kristoff’s respectable 19’04” meant that he finished the race in twelfth place overall. While the Norwegian champion lost the white leader’s jersey however, he held on to the consolation of the green points jersey, thanks to his stage victory and consistent finishing in the thee road stages.