The Dekkers finish second and fourth

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The two unrelated Rabobank Dekkers, Erik and Thomas, finished the Eneco Tour in second and fourth position overall, after riding well in the closing time trial in Etten-Leur. Both riders made up places on the final day, with Erik moving from third to second, and Thomas climbing from eighth to fourth.

In his column in De Telegraaf a few days ago, Thomas wrote about his goal of reaching the top five in this race and scoring some ProTour points. That having been achieved yesterday, he reflected on his performance. "In the past week, I've again taken an important step in my career. I'm extremely satisfied with my fourth place in the final classification of the Eneco Tour. The biggest win is probably that I always raced in the front part of the peloton. Normally I find it hard there. But on the relatively small roads with this big peloton and all the chaos it was still good for me.

"I trained a huge amount for this Eneco Tour, because I made it an important goal. Day after day I trained for 200 kilometres. I'm happy that it turned out so well. Especially my performances in Limburg and in the Ardennes were positive. On the way to Verviers, I could do good work to close the gap to the group with Julich. And I could still finish in the first group. That gives me perspective for the future."

Dekker the younger has quite a bit of racing left in his season, with the Clasica San Sebastian, Dutch time trial championships, GP Plouay, Tour of Poland and the World Championships.