2011 Three Days of De Panne
The 35th Three Days of De Panne ( officially: KBC De Panne - Koksijde Driedaagse ) was a cycling stage race, which took place in Belgium from 29 March to 31 March 2011. It was held in two stages, a half-stage and a short individual time trial over a distance of 539 kilometers in total. The race was part of the UCI Europe Tour 2011 and classified in the highest category there 2.HC.
Participant
At the start, a total of 23 teams, including twelve of the 18 ProTeam. In addition, eleven Professional Continental teams received wildcards for the tour, including the Belgian teams Topsport Vlaanderen- Mercator, Veranda 's Willems- Accent and Landbouwkrediet and the German team NetApp.
Route
Organised by Velo Club De Panne race began with a stage from Middelkerke to Zottegem, where the race with a two times to be driven round course ended. Overall, this section consisted of twelve climbs and three cobblestone sections. Among other things, the well-known of the Tour of Flanders Leberg is frequented.
The following day, led the longest at 219 kilometers section of the tour from Oudenaarde to Koksijde. Here waited six mountain stages and a three- time manageable final round on the driver.
On the last day was the morning a flat stage in De Panne place, followed by the decisive individual time trial in the afternoon over nearly 15 km in the same city.
Stages
Race course
On the first and the most difficult section of the race reached after numerous unsuccessful attacks on the closing laps in Zottegem a four -man lead group stage winner Andre Greipel and Lieuwe Westra, one of the favorites for the overall victory, a few meters in front of the approaching hunting field goal.
The following day Greipel lost in the white leader's jersey but in the middle, provided with five slipways part of the stage about five minutes and had to cede the overall lead at Westra. In the sprint of the field of Russian Denis Galimsjanow won before the German John Degenkolb and thus laid the foundation for winning the green jersey for the most points.
The third stage was held on the morning of the third day and took place in rainy and windy weather conditions. Half of the remaining field of drivers lost on a wind edge connection to the other professionals and fell more than 25 minutes behind at the end of the stage even from the waiting period. Thus, Lieuwe Westra pushed into the mountains classification from fifth to one because the driver in front of him had been excluded. The Italians Jacopo Guarnieri could (Liquigas -Cannondale ) finally decide to sprint out of the fifty -strong field. Previously, the Belgian Bert De Backer took over the overall lead of Westra thanks to two seconds time bonus at the only intermediate sprint of the day. In the final individual time trial, it was Sébastien Rosseler of Team RadioShack, who had no chance of competing with 14 seconds ahead of Westra ( Vacansoleil -DCM ) was able to celebrate the first tour win of his career. Michał Kwiatkowski teammate was also able to also climb in third place on the podium.