It were five amazing days at the Flèche du Sud. The end result for Leopard TOGT? A stage win, a podium sprint finish and a top 10 in the GC. Meanwhile, the team also was active at Rund um Köln.
The Flèche du Sud started of with a tricky prologue in Esch-sur-Alzette. Even though the opener of the race was only 3.2 kilometers long, the ascent of the Côte du Dieswee (400m at 14.5%) made it a challenging one. The Leopard TOGT riders placed themselves in a satisfying postion for the coming four stages.
Colin Heiderscheid then boosted the morale as he took sixth place in the bunch sprint of the first stage. It was the prelude to Mathias Brenghøj's stage win on day two. In a diffucult stage up to Bourscheid, the Dane crossed the line solo in front of a small group, seeing him move up to seventh overall. Just behind, Mats Wenzel took position fourteen and leading the best Luxembourgish rider competition, giving him the yellow jersey.
With two days left, the team fought hard to improve on the GC rankings of Mathias and Mats, but there was (almost) no escaping the pack. In stage three one rider was just able to escape the bunch sprint, but on the final day the peloton sprinted for the victory. In this final sprint, Heiderscheid took the third podium spot. In the end, Brenghøj stayed in position seven, eleven seconds shy of the overall victory. Wenzel took home the best Luxembourgish rider jersey as he finished twelfth in the race.
Meanwhile, another six Leopard TOGT riders were at the start line of the Rund um Köln. This race in Germany had quite a tricky route and the bunch was therefore split in the hills north-east of Köln. Only about thirty riders were on the correct side of the split, unfortunately no Leopard TOGT riders involved. The gap grew so very hard that more than fifty riders missed the time cut. A group of ten sprinted for the victory. In the background Nick van der Lijke was number thirthy-three to cross the line as first rider of our team.
Result Flèche du Sud – 2.2
1 / Pim Ronhaar (NLD) 13:50:38
7 / Mathias Brenghøj (DEN) + 0:11
12 / Mats Wenzel (LUX) + 0:44
18 / Miguel Heidemann (GER) + 1:51
56 / Loïc Bettendorff (LUX) + 15:45
90 / Colin Heiderscheid (LUX) + 24:50
91 / Cedric Pries (LUX) + 25:01
Result Rund um Köln – 1.1
1 / Danny van Poppel (NLD) 04:24:54
33 / Nick van der Lijke (NLD) + 13:29
46 / Oliver Knudsen (DEN) + 13:35
OTL / Robin Skivild (DEN), Tobias Aagaard (DEN) & Mads Østergaard (DEN)
DNF / Tom Paquet (LUX)
