Critérium du Dauphiné – Stage 2 – Jonas Van Genechten «Now I’ll be completely at the disposal of my teammate Mathias Frank»

For the finish at the picturesque Parc des Oiseaux, Nacer Bouhanni (Cofidis) could not help but to take flight. Well-ushered to the line by his teammates in the final kilometers, Bouhanni crossed the line first ahead of Samuel Dumoulin (AG2R La Mondiale) and Sacha Modolo (Lampre). IAM Cycling concentrated on trying to get their sprinter, Jonas Van Genechten, in the best position possible so he could make use of his top speed.  Though a little blocked in the final, and thrown off his stride, the Belgian rider nevertheless grabbed himself a great 6th place at the line.

With his face still dripping with sweat, and salt covering his jersey, Van Genechten retraced his sprint while spinning out his legs on the rollers.  “The team did a great job for me; they had me perfectly positioned for the final.  This was good for me, but also for Mathias Frank, who remained protected near the front.  But I was dreading that section between 500 meters and 300 meters from the line.  I was not wrong either, since I was blocked a bit and lost some speed.  When Bouhanni’s train went left, I found myself on the right.  Sixth place is not too bad, but I do feel a little disappointed, especially when you think of how hard the team worked for me.”

“The day was very nervous, and all the crashes that happened throughout are ready proof.  The leaders all wanted to stay near the front since they knew it was a sprint coming.  So we had to juggle the sprint trains and the climbers all in the same space.  Now I will certainly put myself in the service of my teammate Mathias Frank in order to help him have the best possible position at the bottom of the climbs, and then I’ll try to survive until the finish.”

Before anyone can start thinking about the end of the race, the Dauphiné will throw a very specific challenge in the way of the peloton on Tuesday with the highly anticipated team time trial.  An important test before the Tour de France, it is an opportunity for the IAM Cycling team to tweak its efforts ahead of the similar test in July.  “Tuesday morning before the race, the team will go ride on the course already with a stop watch to make an initial assessment,” Rik Verbrugghe, sports manager for Swiss team, said.  “We will use this exercise to adjust the smallest details before the main event in the afternoon.  Of course, it will also give us an excellent dress rehearsal for the month of July, even if we are missing some of our more experienced riders like Matthias Brändle and Martin Elmiger, who will both be racing at the Tour of Switzerland.  But even without those riders, who know very well how to manage their efforts in a race like a team time trial, we will do our best.  We will try to have a good stage because we know that we absolutely have the potential to do well in this test.”