Team News – Lander King of Sprints

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Great day for BMC in London as Sebastian Lander is sprint King at Friends Life Tour of Britain

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Team News – Lander King of Sprints

NOTE: Send your results as well as club, team & event news here

BMC Racing Team’s Sebastian Lander captured the sprints classification, teammates Stephen Cummings and Martin Kohler finished third and 10th, respectively, in the individual time trial, Rick Zabel was fifth in the afternoon circuit race and Dylan Teuns placed 10th overall as the Friends Life Tour of Britain concluded with two stages Sunday.

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Cummings was nine seconds off the winning time of Bradley Wiggings (Team Sky) and one second behind runner-up Sylvain Chavanel (IAM Cycling) in the 8.8-kilometer race against the clock. In the late afternoon circuit race, Cummings jumped into a breakaway and won the day’s only intermediate sprint to protect Lander’s lead in the sprints. “Steve was really amazing,” BMC Racing Team Sport Director Max Sciandri said. “He did a fantastic time trial and the past couple of days he has been helping Lander. He has an incredible engine and the way he pulled yesterday to get the break back, had he been in the move himself it, it would have really been amazing. It was good to see him help a young guy fight and hold onto the jersey.” Kohler, a past Swiss national time trial and road champion, enjoyed his best result of the season in a time trial by finishing 25 seconds off the winning time.

Teuns was fifth heading into the time trial but finished 59 seconds back of Wiggins in 50th place and slid to ninth as Dylan Van Baarle (Garmin-Sharp) held onto the overall lead by finishing 11th, 25 seconds back. “I think I did the best time trial I have ever done,” Teuns said. “But when I look at the results, it is clear if I want to do a good performance on the general classification I will have to do more training on the time trial bike. The course was not so technical so it was one for the guys with power.”

 

Michal Kwiatkowski (Omega Pharma-Quick Step) finished second overall, 10 seconds back of Van Baarle, while Wiggins was third, at 22 seconds. Teuns – who has only been competing as a stagiaire with the BMC Racing Team since last month – ended up 1:10 back in the final standings. But he reached one of his goals after being as high as third overall earlier in the week. “Before the time trial, I was looking at how many good time trialists were behind me only 10 or 15 seconds,” Teuns said. “So I had to be realistic. I wanted to finish in the top 10 and I did it.”

‘It Was Really Fantastic’

Lander, a past Danish national road champion, won the first jersey classification of his professional career that began in 2010. He first donned the green jersey after Stage 4 Wednesday following his second straight day in the breakaway. “I was hoping to do some good sprints here but when I realized it wasn’t really a sprinter’s race, I started going in the breakaways,” Lander said. “Luckily I made it those two days and took the points. I am really happy about this.” Past race leader Alex Dowsett (Movistar Team) was the biggest threat to taking the jersey from Lander and actually got in a breakaway early on in the 88.8-km circuit race. “I tried to get to the front to chase him, but it wasn’t possible,” Lander said.

“Fortunately, I got some great help from the team, especially Steve Cummings, who did an amazing job. He helped me chase the breakaway, then made the other break and took the points. It was really fantastic.” Marcel Kittel (Team Giant-Shimano) won the final stage ahead of Mark Cavendish (Omega Pharma-Quick Step) and Nicola Ruffoni (Bardiani-CSF) while Zabel earned his fifth top 10 finish of the race”.

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