ProTeam Pascal Eenkhoorn sprints to second place on his home roads

The start for the Volta NXT Classic, the smaller version of the Amstel Gold Race, was given at noon for 190 kilometers. With start and finish in Eijsden, a lot of climbs had to be tackled. 9 riders took a gap after a very fast beginning of the race, among them Mathijs Paasschens. The advantage didn't run higher than 2 minutes. A bit later when the gap became smaller, also Pascal Eenkhoorn and Harm Vanhoucke made the jump to the front. What followed, were several attacks from that leading group. The gap between the bunch and the leaders ran up to one minute.

On the climb of Mheerelindje Eenkhoorn countered the attack of Frank Van den Broek, seeing the 27-year-old Dutchman going solo with 15 kilometers to the finish. Timo Kielich (Alpecin-Deceuninck) was the only one being able to join Eenkhoorn, making it two guys in the front. With a lead of 20 seconds, it was going to be a sprint with two. Eenkhoorn sprinted to the second spot.

"I gave everything, it was just not enough, but I tried everything and even went solo so no regrets. I don't think I went too early, as it was the last difficult part where I knew I could maybe drop the rest. I knew that Timo is really fast, so I tried to go first into the corner, but I couldn't hold it. Last year I was third, this time I'm second with again a hectic edition with a lot of wind in the start. It took a long time until I got into the race, after I was hold up due to a crash. But when I came at the front I showed myself, it's a pity that it's with a second place, but we did all we could."

Picture: PhotoNews