Tour of Qatar – stage 3 – Matthias Brändle «I can do better in a time trial»

The wind continued to show its strength during the time trial stage at the Tour of Qatar.  However, it did not prevent Niki Terpstra (Etixx – Quickstep) from achieving the double victory of taking the stage and the overall lead.  The Dutchman, who already won this event in 2014, managed to beat both Fabian Cancellara and Sir Bradley Wiggins to earn his spot at the top of the leader board, and a chance to wear the golden jersey.  IAM Cycling showed well with Matthias Brändle (6^th) and Reto Hollenstein (10^th) both crashing the top-10 in spite of the demanding time trial.  Encouragingly, Heinrich Haussler took a strong 23^rd place on the stage, which means that he has been able to retain his 8^th place on the overall classification.

At the end of the stage, Matthias Brändle did not hide his thoughts. 

“I can do even better in a race against the clock.  Today we all struggled with the wind and experienced the same conditions.  I am satisfied with my performance, although I probably held back a little too long.  Due to the conditions, I went cautiously into the wind.  And when I crossed the line, I felt that I probably could have gone full gas a little bit earlier, but how was I supposed to know.  To lose just ten seconds to Cancellara and even fewer to Wiggins is nothing to be ashamed of.  This will allow me to measure my progress; every year I gain another level.  Now we will make every effort to set Haussler up so he can win a stage.  He certainly is capable of it.”

Eddy Seigneur, the directeur sportif for IAM Cycling, noted the overall performance of his riders. 

“Even if we expected a good result from Matthias Brändle, I am also very happy to see Reto taking 10^th place, while Roger Kluge took 13^th and Heinrich managed 23^rd.  I hope we won’t stop there, because all the guys are determined to celebrate a victory by Thursday.  Everyone will work to put Heino in a good position.  We have found a good spirit within the team and that certainly should result in a victory at least once.”