Eneco Tour

Prologue: Steenwijk (Ned), 5.2km/3.2mi

By Cathy Mehl

The start of the 8-day Eneco Tour was a 5.2km prologue in Steenwijk on Tuesday with a surprise winner emerging from the pack.  Canadian Time Trial champion Svein Tuft (Garmin) took the victory with his first-ever Pro Tour win.  Second and third went to Rabobank riders Jos Van Emden and Lars Boom.  Boom was an early starter and had led for most of the race before Tuft took over first place with less than ten riders still to ride, setting the benchmark to beat at 6:19. Tuft will wear the white leader's jersey on stage 1.

Team RadioShack’s Sébastien Rosseler took to the start early in the day and held fourth for awhile, finally settling for 11th on the day at eleven-seconds off the pace.  Team riders Gert Steegmans and Andreas Klöden were 16- and 17-seconds off the winning time.

The Eneco Tour continues on Wednesday with the first road stage.  Most of the stages favor the sprinters, but not exactly a pure sprinter.  The profile of the course has a fair amount of hills and the rider who wins will need to be able to haul himself over the climbs in good condition to contest the sprints.  Team RadioShack has several such riders and look to have a successful week of racing in Belgium and the Netherlands.  Stage1 remains in the Netherlands for the day and travels 178km from  Steenwijk to  Rhenen.

Andreas on course

Steegmans shows good form

Top Ten Results

1              Svein Tuft (Can) Garmin - Transitions      0:06:19                   

2              Jos Van Emden (Ned) Rabobank               0:00:05  

3              Lars Boom (Ned) Rabobank         0:00:06  

4              Maarten Tjallingii (Ned) Rabobank           0:00:06  

5              Edvald Boasson Hagen (Nor) Sky Professional Cycling Team         0:00:07  

6              Geraint Thomas (GBr) Sky Professional Cycling Team      0:00:07  

7              Tony Martin (Ger) Team HTC - Columbia               0:00:07  

8              Alex Rasmussen (Den) Team Saxo Bank                0:00:09  

9              Richie Porte (Aus) Team Saxo Bank          0:00:09  

10            Jonathan Castroviejo (Spa) Euskaltel - Euskadi    0:00:10

Team RadioShack Results

11           Sébastien Rosseler (Bel)  0:00:11

23           Gert Steegmans (Bel)  0:00:16

29           Andreas Klöden (Ger)  0:00:17 

36           Tomas Vaitkus (Ltu)  0:00:19       

46           Tiago Machado (Por)  0:00:21

58           Ben Hermans (Bel)   0:00:23

70           Jason McCartney (USA)  0:00:24

76           Gregory Rast (Swi)   0:00:26

Photos courtesy of Graham Watson