Niki Terpstra (Omega Pharma – QuickStep) soloed to victory at the Dwars door Vlaanderen today. The American Tyler Farrar (Garmin Sharp) won the bunch sprint for 2nd with Borut Bozic (Astana) finishing 3rd on the day.
While Team MTN-Qhubeka p/b Samsung would start the race with only 5 riders, this would not deter the African team from getting involved in the racing. Songezo Jim was paying attention early on in the race and managed to get into the main break of the day with 22 other riders.
The large number of riders in the group meant that the peloton kept the pace high ensuring the dangerous break would not get much more than 3 minutes. The increased pressure put on the break by the peloton meant that with 40km left to race the break would start splintering. Jim was absorbed into the peloton while only 8 of the original break survived.
With the peloton being lead by Omega Pharma – QuickStep and Orica-GreenEdge the front 8 would be brought back on the Paterberg. This provided Terpstra with the perfect launchpad to attack the peloton, he would not be seen again.
Jens Zemke, the Team MTN-Qhubeka p/b Samsung Sports Directeur was pleased with the effort of his troops. “We had very few riders here today and so the max we could do was get into the break and see from there. Songezo got into the break and so we can say our goal for today was achieved.”
Dwars Door Vlaanderen (Belgium) – (26 March/UCI 1.HC)
Johann van Zyl (RSA)
Ignatas Konovalovas (LTU)
Bradley Potgieter (RSA)
Martin Reimer (GER)
Songezo Jim (RSA)
Staff: Jens Zemke (Directuer Sportif), Dr Jarrad van Zuydam (Doctor), Ian Blackburn (Soigneur), Yvonne Houweling (Soigneur), Jim Bryan (Mechanic), Heiko Henrici (Mechanic), Werner Lenk (Mechanic), Stevie Christaens (Mechanic)
