Young Belgian denied the chance to sprint into green on home soil in debut Tour
Another voice of dissention could be heard today, that of OmegaPharma-Lotto’s Jürgen Roelandts, showing that yesterday’s race neutralisation was by no means unanimously supported within the peloton. Roelandts had been part of the stage long break, of which stage winner Sylvain Chavanel (Quick Step) was the sole survivor; like Cervélo TestTeam sprinter Thor Hushovd, the Belgian was angry about missing out on points for the green jersey competition.
Having won all three intermediate sprints on the course, Roelandts added 18 points to the 16 he picked up for 10th on stage 1. With second place up for grabs there were still up to 22 more points available on the finish line, 11 of those (or 10th place) would have been enough to give the former Belgian champion the lead in the points competition in his debut Tour.
In the event Chavanel, as the only rider racing at the end of the stage, was the only rider to be awarded points; the 25 on the line were enough to give the Frenchman the green jersey to add to his yellow one.
“Totally XXXX,” the Belgian told Het Laatse Nieuws this morning. “First I have it, and suddenly I don’t. [Fabian] Cancellara told me in the last few hundred metres that there would be no sprint; there would be no points. It was sad to hear after spending the whole day off the front.”
The 25-year-old Belgian seemed to aim most of his anger towards Cancellara; it had been the Saxo Bank rider who had been most prominent at the front of the peloton, slowing things down to allow virtually all riders to regroup. With today’s stage heading to the roads of Paris-Roubaix, a Cancellara speciality, Roelandts wondered whether the same might happen again if the Swiss rider deems things to be dangerous.
“What will happen today on the cobbles?” Roelandts asked. “Will he attack? What happens if it starts raining? Does he go back and put the brakes on? It’s the riders themselves that take the risks, they must also take the consequences.”
“I’m not Cancellara,” he added. “He already has classics on his record, not me. The status, you know.”