Tour de Wallonie

Stage 1: Mouscron to Lessines, 184.4km/115mi

By Cathy Mehl

While part of Team RadioShack are racing and winning the Teams classification in the Tour de France, another seven riders directed by Viatcheslav Ekimov raced in the opening stage of the 2010 Tour de Wallonie.   There were three climbs on Saturday’s course but the day belonged to the sprinters with Italian Danilo Napolitano of Katusha taking the stage win, his second victory of the season. Team RadioShack’s Gert Steegmans was seventh.  Napolitano wears the first leader’s jersey of the five-day stage race.

Director Ekimov was pleased with Steegmans' performance, pointing out that after Gert’s spring injury it has been a long road back for the team sprinter: “It’s been a long break without racing. He needs to warm up.”  Building confidence and getting his sprinting legs under him will be a big goal for Steegmans this week.

Two Belgians drove the pace all day with Gourgue Benjamin and Steven Van Vooren making the break of the day.  But the sprinters wanted their chance on the line and steadily brought back the duo with Quick Step doing the bulk of the work in the main field.  The final catch was made with 10k to go, setting up the mass sprint.

Sunday’s stage 2 is 201.8km from Braine-le-Comte to Tubize.

Top Ten Results

1 NAPOLITANO Danilo KAT 4:28:33 0:00:00

2 WEYLANDT Wouter QST 4:28:33 0:00:00

3 HENDERSON Greg SKY 4:28:33 0:00:00

4 VAN DIJK Stefan WIL 4:28:33 0:00:00

5 KEUKELEIRE Jens * COF 4:28:33 0:00:00

6 GALLAND Jérémie SAU 4:28:33 0:00:00

7 STEEGMANS Gert RSH 4:28:33 0:00:00

8 BOECKMANS Kris * TSV 4:28:33 0:00:00

9 BOZIC Borut VAC 4:28:33 0:00:00

10 DOWNING Russell SKY 4:28:33 0:00:00

Team RadioShack Results

70 LEQUATRE Geoffroy RSH 4:28:33 0:00:00

83 MCCARTNEY Jason RSH 4:28:33 0:00:00

94 BEWLEY Sam * RSH 4:28:33 0:00:00

95 ROSSELER Sébastien RSH 4:28:33 0:00:00

105 VAITKUS Tomas RSH 4:28:33 0:00:00

111 SELANDER Bjorn * RSH 4:28:53 0:00:20

Photo courtesy of Graham Watson