“It was hard, but I was looking forward to it”, Van der Hoorn said. “At the start, I jumped away with ten riders. Later, we were with five. I wasn’t the fastest, but I became third a few times so I could take quite some points. After that, Paul took over."

Martens was very active in the second half of the Hammer Sprint. “We don’t have a sprinter here, so in a real sprint, it would’ve been very hard to collect a lot of points. In the beginning, Taco gained a lot points. After that, I escaped with a group. I’ve beaten the, on paper, faster guys a few times and took a lot of points. We can be very happy with the third place, especially with this line-up. The Hammer Chase suits this team better, so who knows.”

Because of today’s third place and yesterday’s eight place, the team starts third in the closing Hammer Chase.