Jannik Steimle was the fastest rider of the team Friday afternoon.
The penultimate stage of the BinckBank Tour consisted of an 8.1km-long individual time trial held in Riemst on some tight and undulating roads, and as expected, it reshuffled the overall standings at the end of the day. The roads were dry, but the tricky corners crammed in the second part of the course made for some significant gaps between the contenders ahead of Saturday’s decisive stage.
Tour of Slovakia winner Jannik Steimle rode a very strong time trial and at one point he held the fastest provisional time at the finish, before eventually finishing in seventh place. His teammate Yves Lampaert, who is making here just his third appearance since recovering from a collarbone injury, also put in a composed display and concluded the stage won by Soren Kragh Andersen (Sunweb) just behind the German neo-pro and.
Former Belgian ITT Champion, Lampaert is seventh now in the general classification top 10, where he is joined by Florian Sénéchal, less than 30 seconds separating them from the race leader: “The feeling wasn’t quite there today, but I could still put in a decent turn of legs and do a pretty good time trial. I kept my position on the GC, where there’s two of us in the top 10, and this will give us some cards to play on Saturday’s tough stage.”
Photo credit: ©Luc Claessen / Getty Images
