The final stage of the short Dutch tour took the riders on a very flat 163-km course. Marcel Kittel (Argos-Shimano) claimed victory in the anticipated mass sprint ahead of Mark Renshaw (Rabobank) and Jürgen Roelandts (Lotto-Belisol). Mark Cavendish (Sky) came out on top in the general classification. 

Team NetApp’s best riders for the tour were Marcel Wyss and Leopold Koenig in 15th  and 24th place.

Once again, during today’s stage, a four-man group broke away that was controlled by the field at all times. The field was intact once again with eight kilometers to go, and the sprinter teams forced the mass sprint.

“Unfortunately, we weren’t able to score the result we were hoping for today. We lost two riders yesterday, Blaz and Michael, and we were competing with just six riders.  And then Jerome had to withdraw from the race today. We definitely expected that it would come down to a sprint today, but in the final part of the race we simply didn’t have the strength left to keep up,” says Enrico Poitschke summing up the situation.

“For Leo and Marcel the fast and demanding stages were important in terms of continuing to get them in shape for the tours in the second half of the season. Both are displaying promising form for the upcoming Tour of Austria. After his break due to injury, Grischa is also on a good path. The tour was also a warm-up for all the riders in terms of the national championships scheduled for next week,” according to Enrico Poitschke.

stage 1, 14 June: Eindhoven – Sittard/Geleen, 151 km
stage 2, 15 June: Nuth (Schimmert) – Nuth (Schimmert), 167 km
stage 3, 16 June: Hotel Verviers – La Gileppe (Jalhay) Belgium, 187 km
stage 4, 17 June: Schijndel – Boxtel, 163.5 km

Website Ster ZLM Toer GP Jan van Heeswijk