The Danes ruled over the queen stage

Zinnwald/Terezín – The Danish national team showed their power. In the last-but-one stage of the Junior Peace Race they managed to break away from the rest of the peloton and in the finish of the queen stage in the German town of Zinnwald they celebrated a double win and gained the yellow jersey.

            During the third day the riders had to climb Komáří Vížka three times. While during the first passage the young riders sweated in the heat, in the last third, freezing to the bones, soaking wet during a storm they were looking forward to cross the finish line. The temperature dropped by ten degrees. On top of it the Danes decided to test the rest of the bunch pretty thoroughly, there were four of them among the first ten at the finish. The hard climbs showed who is best prepared this year. „The trainer defined the tactics clearly – we had to break away and most importantly we hat to cooperate well. He said that that is the only way to succeed and now I have to say he was right. I feel well in the mountains and I am capable of completing a good time trial, but if some one said to me this morning that I'll be in yellow I would not believe him. It was tough fight." said the freezing Niklas Eg, the second fastest rider of the day, who gained the yellow jersey.

            It was not all that easy for the Danes, very soon the leading Mads Schmidt suffered a defect in the first climb, he lost a lot of time and the race was over for him. The situation was resolved by his team mates. The peloton was torn in pieces already in the first round, the pace was set mainly by the French and the Danes. The final battle for the podium in Zinnwald was between the breakaway of four riders, Andersen, Eg, the Russian Arslanov and the Norwegian Svendsen. The fourth place was left for the visibly disappointed Norwegian, while the podium was occupied by the other three in the previously mentioned order, i.e. Andersen being the winner.

The new leader of the GC is Niklas Eg, who finished second today and who is in the juniors category for the first year. „The last stage will be very hard, but I believe I will be able to defend the yellow jersey. We have a good team and I know I can relay on the boys,“ praised his team mates the seventeen years old Dane.

The last stage on Sunday will reveal if the young Dane was right.

Results – 3rd stage: 1. Soren Andersen 2:27:11, 2. Niklas Eg (both Denmark), 3. Ildar Arslanov (Russia) both +0:01, 4. Oskar Svendsen (Norway) +0:04, 5. Frederik Plesner (Denmark) +0:24, 28. Michael Vakoč (CZ) +5:13.

Overall: 1. Niklas Eg  7:01:59, 2. Soren Andersen (both Denmark) +0:10, 3. Ildar Arslanov (Russia) +0:39, 4. Geoffrey Curran (USA) +0:45, 5. Mads Pedersen (Denmark), 25. Michael Vakoč (CZ) +5:58.