A wet day out in the saddle awaited the riders for the first stage at the 4 Jours de Dunkerque today. Setting out with the goal of looking to create a sprint finish with Casper van Uden, Team dsm-firmenich PostNL rode well together in the bunch behind the day’s breakaway. Coming into the finale and the local laps the rain began to fall even heavier, with mud and dirt on the road making things somewhat treacherous and slippy. The team suffered some misfortune with Tim Naberman and Patrick Eddy both being involved in a small crash, and Van Uden suffering a puncture in the closing 15 kilometres. Nonetheless, the guys were okay and could return to the bunch. The pace was on coming into the final few kilometres with Nils Eekhoff left alongside Van Uden after some good positioning work by the rest of the team. However, through the final few technical turns the duo lost each other so coming out of the last corner Eekhoff tried to launch the lead-out from a distance but unfortunately Van Uden was too far; with the duo ultimately finishing eight and tenth on the stage.
Speaking after the finish Eekhoff said: “It took a longer time than expected for the break to form but once it was away it was quite a controlled stage. Towards the local lap we took the front to be in a good position. Unfortunately, Pat and Tim crashed on a roundabout so we lost some guys. Also because of the wet roads and dirt there were also quite some flat tyres in the peloton and for us on the local laps. We tried to stay organised the best we could with the guys we had left at those moments, keeping Casper in a good position. In the last kilometre Casper and me lost each other so I tried to go from far to launch him from a couple spots behind with other sprinters but he never made it unfortunately. Tomorrow we have a new chance and go again. With a bit more luck on our side then we can go for top result with the strong team that we have here.”