Benelux Tour

26-08-2009 09:38:42

Columbia-HTC's Edvald Boasson Hagen has secured both the final stage and the overall victory in the Eneco Tour.  The leader since stage five, on Tuesday the 22-year-old Norwegian confirmed his domination of the eight-day race with a win in the race's final 13-kilometre time trial at Roermond, Holland.

"Edvald did a great ride. It was a very technical, tricky time trial with a lot of corners and speed bumps, but he still knew exactly what to do," commented Columbia-HTC sports director Tristan Hoffman.  "The weather didn't help either. It had rained hard in the morning and then was starting to dry up in the afternoon, so it was very hard to judge your effort on each corner and how big a risk to take.  I gave Edvald all the information I could, and he only slightly misjudged one corner. Apart from that he came through fine."

Hoffman praised Boasson Hagen's Columbia-HTC teammates for their hard work for the race leader, saying "without them, winning wouldn't have been possible for Edvald, and he knows that.  The Eneco Tour is a race which is always decided by very small margins, so that makes it hard to win and easy to lose, and a strong team like Columbia-HTC is vital for success."

Today's double victory in the Eneco Tour takes the tally of wins for Columbia-HTC men's team in 2009 to 71.