Tobias Lund Andresen strong 2nd in opening CRO Race sprint

The opening day of action at CRO Race saw the sprinters come to the fore as the fought it out in the town of Sinj, with Team dsm-firmenich setting up finisher Tobias Lund Andresen who sprinted to second place.

It was a steady start to proceedings in Croatia with a five rider move able to form out front relatively easy early on into the stage. With all Team dsm-firmenich riders in the bunch, focus remained on staying safe and saving energy for the expected fast finale. The peloton always had the breakaway under control and slowly whittled down the advantage throughout the remainder of the day, making the catch at 20 kilometres to go. Moving up as a unit, the team stayed out of trouble on the nervous run-in, looking to position Lund Andresen for the finale. After some strong teamwork, the young Dane was in a great position for the sprint. Kicking hard and delivering a powerful surge all the way to the line, Lund Andresen was just pipped to the win, settling for a strong second place on the day.

“Today was a long stage on big, good roads and with a headwind,” explained Lund Andresen. “There were a couple of long climbs but the bunch took it easy. Everyone was fully committed to go for me today in the finish and the motivation was clearly high. There were some crashes in the final, but we managed to stay together and the guys delivered me perfectly. I didn’t have the legs to go around Viviani in the end, but also nice with another second place to add the collection.”

Team dsm-firmenich coach Joey van Rhee added: “We made the plan that if there was a bigger group going in the early break then we hoped to be in there to maybe take some seconds and take pressure off in the bunch. In the end it was only five guys that went away. From that point we then made sure we were in position going into the local lap and that everyone knew their roles. The most important thing was that we stayed calm, which the guys did. As we made the turn into the last 500 metres Tobias lost the wheel of Pavel but he was able to get onto the back wheel of Viviani by carrying a lot of momentum. He was in the perfect position then after a good lead-out by the guys. From that point it was rider against rider and it was a really close one. It shows the quality of the team here and we’re all already looking forward to tomorrow’s opportunity to go for it.”