May 19, 204 – The Tour of Belgium is a fairly tough race with three flat stages that are open to the wind, a double day that includes a AM time trial and a PM road stage and then the final day of 225km on much of the Liege-Bastogne-Liege course. We have a strong team here. Stig Devolder is fresh off a win in Dunkirk as is Max Van Hejswik. Victor Pena and I are back from a three-week break and Dave Zabriskie has healed from his injuries in Redlands and is back on form and motivated.
We are staying in Oostende, a large town right on the coast. Today's stage started and finished a few hundred meters from the hotel so we had a good idea what the finish looked like. As there are many teams with strong sprinters here we were fairly certain the field would remain together and the race would be controlled by those teams with an interest in having a field sprint. Half way through the stage all hell broke loose and the field splintered into several groups while we were racing through a crosswind section. We had great representation in the front and drove the group for 50 km or so as Max was in form to contest the sprint. With 40 km to go two groups merged and we were looking at a massive sprint. Postal kept things failry under control although two riders from Lampre managed to get away in a moment of hesistation and held off the charging field. So, in the end Max missed out on an opportunity to race for the victory but on a positive note the team was very strong and was on the front most of the day.
The team is racing on two fronts at this time, one here and the other in Languedoc-Rousillion. In the next few weeks we will all be racing a lot as the team prepares for the Tour de France.
Stage 1 :1. Gianluca Bortolami (Ita) Lampre
2. Geert Omloop (Bel) MrBookmaker
3. Mikhail Timochine (Rus) Landbouwkrediet-Colnago
4. Manuel Quinziato (Ita) Lampre
5. Stefan Van Dijk (Ned) Lotto-Domo
6. Tom Boonen (Bel) Quick.Step-Davitamon
7. Stuart O'Grady (Aus) Cofidis
8. Roy Sentjens (Ned) Rabobank
9. Robert Hunter (RSA) Rabobank
10. Sebastien Chavanel (Fra) Brioches la Boulangere
For more about Barry, visit www.michaelbarry.ca