After a phenomenal team effort throughout the day, Team Sunweb's Ellen van Dijk (NED) rewarded the team's hard work with a victory, as she soloed to the finishing line after a perfect lead-out by her team mates into the final climb from eight kilometres to go.
Speaking of the win, Van Dijk said: "The team was really incredible today, everyone did their job perfectly. We were constantly attacking all race and it was my job to just stay calm. The girls did a super strong lead-out onto the last climb and nobody could follow us. From then it was all or nothing and I knew I just had to keep riding to the finish and not look back. There was a really hard crosswind section on the open fields and I realised it would be really hard to stay away by myself, but I just carried on and it paid off. I'm really happy to finish off the team's hard work today with the win."
Team Sunweb coach Hans Timmermans (NED) added: "The team really stuck to their plan like clockwork today. They launched attack after attack and made the race really hard, just like we'd planned. The whole team were there to position Ellen on the bottom of the climb and the plan worked out perfectly. The whole team did a great job today and their commitment was super high. Each rider gave it their all until the tank was empty, which makes us even more proud of the win today." |
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