De Panne: Viviani wins stage 2 in Koksijde

Elia Viviani (Team Sky) stunned Marcel Kittel (Etixx-QuickStep) on stage 2 of the Three Days of De Panne, latching onto the German’s lead-out train before passing him in the final 50 metres to take the win.

The 211-kilometre stage culminated in three local laps in coastal Koksijde, the last of which was fast and furious as Etixx, Sky, and Lotto Soudal all battled for position ahead of the sprint. Viviani was forced to freelance and chose the perfect wheel before showing impressive speed in the closing metres to beat Kittel. Stage 1 winner Alexander Kristoff (Katusha) came through for third and retained his overall lead.

Viviani watched the replay of the sprint as he changed for the podium ceremony and a smile spread across his face as he saw how he came past Kittel in the closing metres.

“My teammates helped me a lot today to get on the right wheel today. I got Kittel’s wheel on the last corner,” he explained. “I knew they had a super strong lead out train for him but I also knew that there was a head wind, so I waited for the right moment to go.”

The victory is an important one for Viviani, who missed out on the Omnium world title on the track earlier in the month, and whose focus is back on the road ahead of the Giro d’Italia. The 27-year-old had just enough time to raise an arm in celebration as he crossed the line, but he soon sat up and clenched both fists, his grimace revealing how much the win meant to him.

“I’m really happy because it comes after a difficult moment for me. I didn’t get the results I’d hoped for on the track and so it’s good to win today,” he said.

“I’ve raced a lot this season and done the track, so I’m right at the end of a big block now. I’ll take a break after Paris-Roubaix and then start thinking of the Giro d’Italia. It’s a very, very important goal for me,” added the Italian who won a stage of the corsa rosa last year.

How it happened

With crashes, cobbles, crosswinds, and rain, most of the hallmarks of this idiosyncratic race were on display, and there were even fisticuffs as Katusha's Viacheslav Kuznetsov landed a light punch on Alexandre Pichot of Direct Energie.

No injuries were sustained in that spat but that wasn’t the case for some of the crashes, the worst of which saw Bardiani-CSF’s Nicola Boem lifted into an ambulance in a neck brace. Kenneth van Bilsen hit the deck on a cobbled stretch of road with 58km to go, causing a pile-up that sent Jack Bauer into one ditch and a Gazprom-RusVelo rider into the other. Boem hit his face and was put in the brace for precaution before being taken for tests.

The stage, which took riders from Zottegem towards the French border and then north towards the coast, featured five climbs, including the Kemmelberg, packed into a 20km section just after the half-way mark.

The break of the day, made up of Pim Ligthart (Lotto Soudal), Julien Morice (Direct Energie), Alessendro Tonelli (Bardiani-CSF), Gianfranco Zilioli (Nippo-Vini Fantini), Ivar Slik (Roompot), Jonas Tenbrock (Stölting Service Group), Bert Van Lerberghe (Topsport) and Mamyr Stash (Gazprom-RusVelo), once had over 7 minutes but soon saw their lead start to drop.

Stash was the first to go, before Ligthart, Slik, and Van Lerberghe went clear and collaborated all the way to Koksijde where Lightart went solo before giving up the game with 15km to go.

By that point the pace in the bunch was high, though it was a bunch that had been reduced by the climbs and also by the subsequent crosswinds. Team Sky set the pace inside the final 10km while Etixx gathered with strength in numbers and Lotto also came to the fore for Greipel.

It was Etixx who dominated inside the final few kilometres, and it looked certain that Kittel would be delivered safely to the line, but Viviani had other ideas, and employed a mix of positioning, timing, and raw speed, to make it happen.

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