For the fourth day in a row, Soudal Quick-Step had a rider in the top ten.
Jannik Steimle once again confirmed the progress he has made in races against the clock, taking a strong eighth place on the penultimate day of the Tour de Wallonie – a 32.7km individual time trial held around Mons, over an undulating parcours.
What made the 27-year-old German’s result more impressive was the fact he was among the early starters Tuesday afternoon, hours before the specialists of the discipline. An average speed of 49.67km/h helped Jannik score his fifth top 10 finish of the season, as Filippo Ganna (Ineos Grenadiers) took a victory which put him in control of the overall standings.
In the general classification, Coppi e Bartali champion Mauro Schmid is the team’s highest-ranked rider, just four seconds off the top ten, but with a real shot of moving up the standings on the final stage, which will await the peloton with numerous climbs, including a 1000m-long one averaging 6.8% just before the last kilometer.
Photo credit: ©Luc Claessen / Getty Images
