Ronde van Vlaanderen
Heinrich Haussler won the sprint for second place after a great attack in the last kilometer that was marred by a nasty crash on the final straight into Meerbeke.
Hushovd wasn’t convinced that his sprinting form was good enough, so with a kilometer to go he told his team mate Heinrich Haussler to attack. “I attacked and with 500 metres to go, my legs were ready to explode. The directeur was yelling in my ear, ‘don’t look back, don’t look back, just pedal!'” said Haussler.
The plan worked out well for the Cervélo Test Team, Haussler got away so fast that he gained a good 50 meters and easily took second place. “I am happy. I may not look happy because I am extremely exhausted – I just didn’t have the legs I had two weeks ago. I’m not fresh anymore.” Haussler said. “At least I got second. During the race I didn’t think I would get that far.
The crash on the last kilometer involved Thor Hushovd who was taken to hospital to be checked over. Hushovd was disappointed and said “that he would have won the sprint for 3rd place without the crash”.
Sports Director Jean Paul Von Poppel. commented after the race, “this was the second super important race for us and we showed good teamwork. I must admit that one team was better than us today that being Quick Step with a super strong Stijn Devolder.”
“If Thor hadn’t crashed we were in an excellent position to take third, with the same result as in Milan-San Remo, but it didn’t work out completely so we must be happy with second place. The pity of the crash was, it was unnecessary. It was some rider who was not a real sprinter who took a risk. He put himself in, tried to put his front wheel in somewhere where you could not and he crashed and took Thor with him that was a pity. We’ll wait for the results; things do not look for good for him for the next race. So all in all we are satisfied for the team with second place, it could have been better but the crash took us out.” said Jean Paul Von Poppel.
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