An Post-Sean Kelly’s best performer today: Gediminas Bagdonas in TT mode
Ireland’s Matt Brammeier and the An Post-Sean Kelly team have gotten their campaign in the Driedaagse van West-Vlaanderen (Three Days of West Flanders) underway with a prologue TT today.
Brammeier complained of being under par during the 7km test in Middelkeerke; the kind of effort that would normally suit him and where he finished 30th last year in one of his first races for HTC Highroad.
It’s a strongman’s race that should suit the Irish TT and road champion. However, with his team mates Michal Kwiatkowski and Julien Vermote first and second today, Brammeier will find himself riding for the team unless the race splits tomorrow and the duo fall out of contention.
The An Post-Sean Kelly team riding in Flanders does not feature any of the squad’s Irish riders.
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Instead Sean Downey, Ronan McLaughlin, Sam Bennett and Connor McConvey will line out as part of a six-man team in tomorrow’s one day De Vlaamse Pijl (1.2) in Belgium.
An Post Ras winner Gediminas Bagdonas was the best placed of the team today in the Flanders TT, coming home in a very handy 17th place; just 21 seconds down.
With two more stages tomorrow and Sunday taking the riders 181.5km and 186.5km there promises to be some fast and exciting old-school Belgian racing.
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An Post’s veteran galloper Niko Eeckhout has won stages here in the past and he’ll be looking for the team’s first win of the season should the stages come down to sprint finishes from either a bunch or breakaway.
Three Days of West Vlaanderen 2.1
Stage 1: Middelkeerke, Prologue TT 7 kms
1. Michal Kwiatkowski (OmegaPharma-QuickStep) 8 mins 0secs
2. Julien Vermote (OmegaPharma-QuickStep) at 4 secs
3. Robert Wagner (Radioshack-Nissan) 9 secs
4. Alex Rasmussen (Garmin-Barracuda) 10 secs
5. Jesse Sergent (Radioshack-Nissan) same
6. Guillaume Van Keirsbulck(OmegaPharma-QuickStep) same
7. Mikhail Ignatyev (Katusha) 13 secs
8. Michael Rogers (Team Sky) same time.
9. Jack Bauer (Garmin-Barracuda) 14 secs
10. Tyler Farrar (Garmin-Barracuda) 15 secs
Selected others
17. Gediminas Bagdonas (Lit) 21 secs
66. Niko Eeckhout (Bel) 40 secs
119. Matt Brammeier (Irl) OmegaPharma-QuickStep 52 secs
130. Mark Christian (GBr) 56 secs
134. Joren Segers (Bel) 57 secs
136. Niels Wytinck (Bel) 58 secs
152. Mark McNally (GBr) 1:02
182. Stijn Ennekens (Bel) 1:15
185. Pieter Ghyllebert (Bel) 1:18
No time bonuses for the stage meaning the general classification is the same as the stage result above.
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