Peron puts weekends crash behind him on opening stage of Belgium Tour

A hectic and explosive opening stage of the Baloise Belgium Tour saw Italian Andrea Peron bouncing back from Sunday’s crash and sprinting well to take 14th place for Team Novo Nordisk.

Sports Director Gennady Mikhaylov:

“When I saw the parcours for this year’s race I knew today was going to be a scrappy stage and that’s exactly how it turned out. We had a few flats, Matyas crashed and with the split peloton there was no way to regroup, so thanks to Andrea for such a strong ride and saving the day.”

“He held on impressively on the cobbles and up the short climbs and if he hadn’t been boxed in through the last 500 meters he would have been top ten for sure.”

Andrea Peron:

“I had great legs today and I felt good throughout. After crashing hard on Sunday I wasn’t sure about how I was going to go today, the team medical staff have been great the last couple of days and really looked after my knee, so a big thanks to them.”

“It was a pretty tense opener and you could feel that it was ready to blow when Van der Poel made his first attack and there were a couple of moments where I thought that we wouldn’t catch them. But it came back in time for the finale, I followed DSM’s lead out, surfed a little and then 500 meters to go was blocked on the right and top 15 was the best I could do.”

Photo: sprint cycling agency