Taylor Phinney wins opening stage of Eneco Tour 2011 - Cycling News
BMC racing team’s Taylor Phinney showed a tremendous effort in the opening stage and also took overall leader’s yellow jersey in Eneco Tour 2011 in Amersfoort on Monday, August 8.
The 21-year-old world champion American racing cyclists took the total of 6 minutes and 57 seconds to cover the distance of 5.7 kilometres. After taking victory Phinney was very happy and satisfied with his good effort.
Phinney said, “I’ve had a relatively relaxed week, and it was all about building up for this prologue. I was surprised how good I was in the warm up. It was wet and windy. I knew I was going to take some risks and I’ve got the scars to prove it, but the
weather cleared up.”
In the technical course, Phinney was always going to be a risk, using his bike handling skills in the race. However, in this stage Leopard Trek rider Robert Wagner managed to set early good time.
Jessie Sergeant of RadioShack tried his best to take a lead but the host failed to displace the Radioshack cyclists including Greaint Thomas of the Sky team. Sergeant managed to gain a lead of 30 minute and was knocked from the top spot as the two riders
including Jos Van Emden and Alex Rasmussen.
However, Phinney increased his pace and beat Rasmussen by nine seconds while Edvald Boasson Hagen (Sky) was runner-up with 7 seconds behind Phinney.
David Millar of the Garmin-Cervelo team was in third place with the difference of 8 seconds and Jesse Sergent was in seventh place with the difference of 12 seconds.
He further added, “It’s a good race for me, and racing in Belgium and Hollans is my thing. There’s a time trial in a couple of days so if I can hold the lead through to then, I will. I will look forward to the challenge.”
In this season Phinney grabbed second place in Prologue stage of Tour of Romandie and grabbed ninth place in US National ITT. He also won the National Time Trial Championship and Individual Pursuit UCI Track World Championship in 2010.
The next stage will start in Oosterhout and end in Sint Willebrord. All the cyclists will cover the distance of 192.1 kilometres.
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