The epic edition of Gent-Wevelgem on Sunday didn’t result in the victory that Etixx-QuickStep was hoping to accomplish. Team manager Patrick Lefevere said that Mark Cavendish and several other riders were confronted with bad luck, and that Tom Boonen’s absence made his riders restless. Niki Terpstra, however, salvaged the race for the team when he took second place at a short distance back from winner Luca Paolini (Katusha), and the Dutch rider felt that he got the most out the difficult circumstances.
Terpstra rode attentive near the front of the echelons through Gent-Wevelgem’s strong wind gusts, especially during the famous Moeren flatlands. Midway into the race, the 30-year-old was thrown backwards due to a mechanical when an elite lead group of about 20 riders was doing the loop around the Casselberg climb. Once back in front, he saw Jürgen Roelandts (Lotto-Soudal) riding away, and then also the counter-attack with teammate Stijn Vandenbergh, Daniel Oss (BMC), Geraint Thomas (Sky), Sep Vanmarcke (LottoNL-Jumbo) and Jens Debusschere (Lotto-Soudal).
Terpstra seemed locked in the peloton that threw in the towel. He didn’t respond to the late solo move from Luca Paolini (Katusha) who managed to bridge up to the elite chase group.
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“I hesitated a bit and I lost the momentum to be together with them. I decided to go when the gap was a minute. It is not just a time trial to make it to the group. It is really full gas, maximum effort, until you can catch them. Otherwise you won't make it. I was able to catch them, even though it cost me a lot,” Terpstra said.
From there, Vandenbergh worked hard for Terpstra to get lone leader Roelandts back. In the final scrimmages, however, Terpstra failed to neutralized the solo move from Paolini, who went on to win an epic edition of Gent-Wevelgem.
Terpstra chased hard together with Thomas and eventually took the sprint for second place.
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