Rory Townsend has taken 3rd place in a major one-day race in Belgium featuring many of the biggest WorldTour teams in the sport.
The British-based Irish rider, who competes for Canyon dhb p/b Bloor Homes, sprinted onto the podium yesterday at Heylen Vastgoed Heistse Pijl (1.1).
Álvaro José Hodeg (Deceuninck-QuickStep) ran out the winner from Jasper Philipsen (UAE-Team Emirates) and 23-year-old Townsend.
Deceuninck-QuickStep controlled the 196.4km race from Turnhout to Heist op den Berg after an early escape went clear, with Townsend in it.
While the six-man breakaway had seven minutes at one point Deceuninck-QuickStep did most of the work in halving that gap by the time the racing reached the finishing circuits.
The peloton split several times in the last hour of racing but regrouped, though only the front of the strung out main field caught the last of the escapes inside the closing kilometre.
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In the final sprint to the line some of the breakaway survivors were pitted against the few riders from the peloton who caught them.
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Townsend went head-to-head with the top sprinters and ended up on the podium.
While it was his best result of the season he has also taken some wins on British roads and placed a number of times in Europe.
He has been enjoying a great year, winning Circuit of the Mendips in June; round four of the National Road Series.
Townsend also claimed the East Cleveland Klondike GP in April and a round of the Tour Series in Britain in May.
In March he was 3rd in Classic Loire Atlantique (1.1) in France, following that up with 3rd in the Rutland-Melton Cicle Classic (1.2) in England in April.
Townsend was 2nd in Memorial Philippe Van Coningsloo (1.2) in Belgium two weeks ago and the next day, also in Belgium, placed 13th in Ronde van Limburg (1.1).
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