Stybar breaks through on saturday (Hasselt) and sunday (Hamme Zogge)
Hasselt (GvA)
Zdenek Stybar finally grabbed a major win in Belgium after flanking the podium in many of the seasons' previous races. The Czech champion not only gave the team its first win of the season, teammate Kevin Pauwels made it a Telenet-Fidea one-two as he came a close second in the four-man sprint in the GP Hasselt. World champion Niels Albert finished third after dominating all race long but failing to drop his rivals, while Sunweb-Projob's Klaas Vantornout finished an unlucky fourth place out of four. Rabobank's Bart Aernouts, part of the five-man lead group, put in a blistering attack on the last lap, but was reeled back by Albert and finished seven seconds behind the sprint in fifth.
Stybar moved himself up into third in the overall classification of the GvA-Trophy behind Albert by claiming three bonus points at the intermediate sprint after two laps; the young Czech is now trailing Albert by only four points. Stybar has been nipping at the heels of a win all season, and the 23 year-old Czech was delighted after claiming his first victory. "Amai, super! I'm really happy that I finally got that first win, not only for myself but also for the people around me and my sponsor of course," Stybar said in Flemish, pleasing the local audience.
Result :
1. Zdenek Stybar
2. Kevin Pauwels
3. Niels Albert
Hamme Zogge (SP)
Zdenek Stybar carried the momentum from his first season victory on Saturday into the Superprestige race in Hamme Zogge, taking another sprint victory this time over Belgian champion Sven Nys and a sorely disappointed Klaas Vantornout (Sunweb-Projob).
"It is super, what a dream weekend. I didn't expect that it would succeed to win twice in two days," said a clearly overjoyed Stybar . A nice double for Stybar and his team Telenet-Fidea.
Result :
1. Zdenek Stybar
2. Sven Nys
3. Klaas Vantornhout
Pictures : Belga and Photonews