“Because Ramon Sinkeldam abandoned the race, we jumped ahead of Sunweb in the day’s results. But we still needed to fight a very close race to make the top half to qualify for for tomorrow,” Sports Director Nico Verhoeven said. 

The Hammer sprint counted eight laps. Verhoeven thought it where eight separate stages, such was the fight. The surprise performances were from Cannondale, Trek-Segafredo and Nippo-Vini Fantini, which gathered many points today. 

“There is not much you can do about that. The only thing you can do is collect points. In the end, we did a good job because we got sixth,” Verhoeven said.

“Every lap you saw small groups try to break away and get to the finish line. It was a show.” 

The Hammer Chase, a 45-kilometre team pursuit, closes out the inaugural event. 

“We are starting as the last team of the second heat tomorrow, so it is going to be quite a challenge”, Verhoeven said. “It is not realistic to say that we’re going for the victory, but we can still achieve a better result than eighth. 

“We have got a very strong team. With this competition and in this race, you want to go for the best result possible. We are looking towards the podium, but that is going to be a big challenge.”