Tour of Denmark stage 1

For the first time in my life I'm in Denmark. Due to the fact that I'm in my 6^th year as a professional it doesn't happen too often nowadays that I'm at a race that I've never been to before. So I have been quite excited about the Tour of Denmark because I've only really heard good stories about the race too. I've heard that the roads are very good, hilly with a good asphalt surface and nice scenery, good hotels with great food (which is very important for racing cyclists) and that there's loads of people along the roadside too.

Mostly when you have so many expectations, things can always come up short but luckily I wasn't disappointed. Today we rode through loads of nice little towns with stunning coastline with a beautiful fjord. As a rider you don't have much time to look around but I did manage to look around from time to time today. The other cyclists were looking too but perhaps not at the scenery but at all the beautiful women that can be seen here, you could hear yelling appreciating them coming from the peloton.

Was that everything today then? Unfortunately no, with about 30km left on the day a leading group of seven had an advantage of 2 minutes when all of a sudden the clouds broke open and there was an outslaught of rain and hail. Due to the finishing lap with lots of corners through Holstebro, the rain made for dangerous racing with many crashes consequently. Luckily I managed to stay at the front and handled things well to avoid any falls around me and I was able to help Kenny van Hummel in the mass sprint. Unfortunately I lost him just before the final corner when a few riders fell in front of me with 500 metres left. I avoided the group with one foot out of the pedal and carefully passing the others but then I wasn't able to do anything else for Kenny. I finished about 50 metres behind the leading group of 15 but due to being hindered by a crash within the final 3km I received the same time as the winner. Kenny came 4^th in the sprint and so it was a good day for the team. We didn't lose any time in the classification and we got a good stage placing. Hopefully tomorrow will be another good day (or even better..)

Greetings,

Koen