Riley Sheehan couldn’t have asked for a better start to the Czech Tour with the American sprinting to the win on stage one after a perfect execution of the team’s plan.
The victory marks Sheehan’s second of the season – his first for the WorldTour team – and will see the 26-year-old wear the first leader’s jersey of the four-day race.
“The win means a lot,” admits Sheehan. “It’s kind of funny because I’ve won as a stagiaire, and then I raced down with the Devo Team, and I won one there, and it’s really nice to win with the NSN jersey in the WorldTour team finally and get that real victory here.”
For Sheehan, it was a case of stellar teamwork and timing everything to perfection after the four-man breakaway was caught with 20 kilometers remaining, which set the stage for a fast downhill run into the finish in Karlovy Vary.
“I had full confidence that we’d catch the breakaway,” explains Sheehan. “INEOS are super strong and they rode hard all day. With the chaos of that finish, we all watched it last year, we saw how the group split and everyone was up there in the final. I had a phenomenal team to back me up and we played our cards right and they all came in together in the finale and positioned me perfectly. All I had to do was just sprint at the end. It was a perfect day.”
Stage one was the biggest chance for the sprinters in the race and from tomorrow, the peloton will head for the mountains with three category 1 summit finishes on the cards for the remainder of the race. But, the race is far from over for Sheehan.
“I’ll try and hang on for dear life, I think,” adds Sheehan. “It was a good sprint for me today, and maybe tomorrow is another opportunity. It’s not the hardest climb, just hard in the final, and if I can hang on for a short climb, it could be good. But we’re here with Jan Hirt and he’s in his home country. He’s flying, he’s a super strong guy, and we believe in him.”
Sports Director René Andrle echoed Sheehan’s thoughts saying: “I think tomorrow can be another good day for us with a great final for Riley. We’ll see how fast the final is but we’ll also be focused on Jan so we have multiple cards to play. Stages three and four will suit Jan more so tomorrow could be another opportunity for Riley if there’s a big group and everything stays together.”
For Andrle, today’s win is one of those rare occasions when a race plays out exactly as hoped.
“We checked the video from last year and we decided to be on the inside for the corner,” adds Andrle. “We also decided that we needed to do just one really good, strong pull with Marco, and he did it exactly as we planned. Riley was sitting third wheel, and straight after the corner he opened up the sprint on the wheel of Turner and was able to time it perfectly and get around him. Everything went exactly as we planned, so we’re really happy with that.”