Lidl-Trek continue their winning streak at ZLM Tour: after Mathias Vacek on stage one and two, Max Walscheid took the glory on stage three
Max Walscheid won the third stage of the ZLM Tour in Bergen op Zoom, continuing Lidl-Trek’s winning streak.
After Mathias Vacek won the opening time trial and also claimed victory on stage two, the German rider went on to win the third stage in a sprint from a ten-man breakaway group.
Vacek finished in the same time in seventh place on the day after 201-kilometers and remains the overall leader of the five-day stage race. The Czech champion has a 39-second lead over Walscheid in second place overall, 1’06 over Axel van der Tuuk of Team Euskaltel-Euskadi in third, and 1’08 over Tim van Dijke of Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe.
Vacek had already triumphed from a similar situation on stage two.
There, a twelve-man breakaway group formed in the strong coastal winds of the Zeeland region, with four Lidl-Trek riders among them.
From this group, Vacek eventually attacked together with Tim van Dijke in the final kilometers and beat the Dutcman in a sprinting duel. Walscheid finished sixth, Edward Theuns ninth and Héctor Álvarez eleventh.
On Stage three, a very similar scenario unfolded: once again, strong winds shaped the entire day, and the peloton split into several groups early on the Oesterdam, a dam more than ten kilometres long running through the sea.
“It was again a day in the wind and I have to say on the dam there at the sea it was pretty on the limit. We had to really take care to not fly away,” Vacek explained.
“Everybody knew it would be echelons again, full gas the whole day. And in the end Bora, us and Visma again had the numbers in the first group. Going back on the dam it split again into a smaller group, the ten people that went to the finish.”
When the race crossed the Oesterdam for the second time at the beginning of the second half of the race, the decisive ten-man group featuring Walscheid and Vacek eventually got clear and built up a lead of as much as two minutes. They ultimately reached the finish with a 1’08 lead over the first larger chasing group.
Lidl-Trek making the race. | Photo: Joris Knapen @jozza_cclingpics and @peervanrooij
In the final kilometers, Vacek did a large share of the work at the front to save Walscheid for the sprint — and Walscheid then beat Alessia Magagnotti of Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe.
“We really wanted to give Max the chance today to go for the win – I won two stages, so he also deserves it after all the work he did for me, and he used that chance perfectly to win the stage. It couldn’t go much better,” said Vacek.
Stages four and five on Saturday and Sunday will once again feature two completely flat stages around Schijndel and Waalwijk. This time, however, the race will no longer take place directly along the coast, so conditions could be somewhat less windy.
Walscheid reflected on his win:
It was a good sprint. I really saved my legs over the last kilometers for this one effort. Vacek helped me very well – it's a pleasure, if the leader's jersey is turning for you so you can rest, and I'm glad we pulled it off.
To win all three stages may seem easy, but it is a lot of hard work. Also today we needed to put the absolute maximum effort into it and we are super proud how we are performing this week. I'm not entirely sure about the weather tomorrow, but today and yesterday it was definitely anything but easy.
I hope we have a little bit more of a quiet day tomorrow, because at the moment we have the cards in our hands and we are the team who can lose it. So it would be great to have a little bit of rest. But if it's another battle, we are also ready!
