First Endurance rider Edvald Boasson Hagen (Columbia-HTC) increased his overall lead in the Eneco Tour with a bunch sprint victory on stage six.  Boasson Hagen’s first place in the bunch sprint that decided stage six from Genk to Roermond earned the Norweigan a ten-second bonus and stretches his overall advantage to 21 seconds ahead of Tyler Farrar of the USA. Boasson Hagen’s latest victory places him in an ideal position for Tuesday’s final 13-kilometre time trial.

“It was a great sprint today.  Mark Renshaw gave me a lead-out like the one he gave Mark Cavendish on teh Champs Elysées in the Tour de France,” the Columbia-HTC rider said.  “The team worked perfectly to take me all the way to the line and then all I had to do was finish off the job.  Tomorrow [Tuesday] my advantage should be enough to win overall, and I hope I get the victory because it would be a nice way to say thank you to the team for helping me so much here.”

“We couldn’t have asked for a better result today,” added Columbia-HTC sports director Tristan Hoffman.  “We had to make a decision whether we went for the bonus seconds or not, and we decided to go for them.  Other teams were interested in a bunch sprint, and in the last 10 kilometres it all came together.  We knew Farrar was fast in a sprint, but Edvald’s form is getting better and better.  He’s now got nearly 30 seconds on the time trial specialists overall, and psychologically today’s victory should give him the edge on his rivals for the final time trial.”

COLUMBIA-HTC TESTING NEW 1st ENDURANCE PROTOTYPES-Columbia-HTC is working with 1st Endurance on a new OptygenHP upgrade and a new EFS drink upgrade.  They've had the OptygenHP prototype since the Tour of California and received the EFS drink prototype right before the Tour of Ireland.