Continuing on what has been an extremely successful year in the peloton, Tom Boonen put himself on the podium today in the Eneco Tour, with the Belgian taking over at the top of the Eneco Tour.
Boonen had started the stage a second behind the overall leader Jens Keukeleire (Orica-GreenEdge), the Omega Pharma Quick Step rider picking up two seconds when he placed second in an intermediate sprint inside the final 20 kilometres of today’s stage.
“The plan was to win the stage…it didn't work out, but we have the leader's jersey,” he said afterwards. Boonen was fourth in the gallop to the line, finishing behind Marcel Kittel (Argos-Shimano), Jurgen Roelandts (Lotto-Belisol) and Giacomo Nizzolo (Radioshack-Nissan)
“We were chasing down the breakaway a few kilometres before the sprint bonification. We were in the front of the peloton and automatically I took the bonification,” he said, explaining how he nabbed the jersey. “I'm happy because I like this race and it's always nice to get the leader's jersey. Tomorrow we will have to control the race, which is never easy. Then we have to do a good time trial. I really want to ride a good TT going into the last stage. But I'm not the only one in the team who can do well. Niki, Sylvain, Dries and Michal are all good time trialists and they are also good on a parcours like the one we have to face off on, on Sunday. We will see."