Breschel shines in Ireland

Danish talent Matti Breschel (Team CSC) has been scorching the pavement this August, and his form continued to shine in the Tour of Ireland on Thursday when won the second stage of Tour of Ireland. Breschel out-sprinted the equally formidable Norwegian Edvald Boassen Hagen (Team Maximo Bianchi) and T-Mobile's speedster Bernard Eisel at the finish of the 167-kilometer route from Clonakilty to Killarney.

"It was a tough day, but it ended perfectly," said Breschel on his team's website, www.team-csc.com. "I wasn't feeling all that great this morning, but got better as the day went on and the other guys on the team did brilliantly for me at the end. During the final kilometer there were attacks from other teams, but no one was allowed to get too far and then I opened up the sprint about 200 meters from the finish line," Breschel explained.

The winner of a stage in his home country, the Post Tour of Denmark, has been scoring top ten after top ten in the past month – four in the Tour of Denmark and two in Ireland to go along with a third and fifth as well as ninth overall in the Sachsen Tour at the end of July.

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"I still feel on form after Tour of Denmark and of course I'm using that to the maximum," Breschel admitted. "I'm on a roll right now and I want to take advantage of that as long as I possibly can," he added.

Breschel won't be fighting for the overall classification, since he was behind the break of ten which gained 13 minutes on the peloton on the first stage of the Irish Tour, but instead will be working for his Swedish team-mate Marcus Ljungqvist, who moved up from fourth to second place in the general classification thanks to two three second time bonuses he picked up along the route on stage two.

"We kinda felt the need to retaliate after yesterday and we managed to do so with style," said sports director Kim Andersen in reference to the unusual stage one breakaway. "We tried to make it in different breaks at first, but we weren't allowed so instead we had to try and reduce the peloton as much as possible and line up Matti for the sprint. Our guys did really well out there today and Matti was totally brilliant at the end. He won very convincingly and at the same time Markus Ljungqvist moved to the top of the general classification."