Knees pleased with opening sprint

23 Aug 2018

Knees pleased with opening sprint

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Christian Knees was upbeat after narrowly missing out on a top 10 finish in a sprint finish on stage one of the Deutschland Deine Tour.

Alvaro Hodeg (Quick-Step) narrowly won the stage on the line following a close bunch sprint, with Knees finishing 12th after Luke Rowe had threatened to steal the sprinters' thunder.

Rowe launched an audacious attack with eight kilometres to go to the finish in Bonn, only to be caught with just under 5km to go by the chasing peloton. 

Knees revealed that the plan was then for him to launch his own counter off the back of the Welshman's push, which unfortunately did not come to fruition. 

He told TeamSky.com: "We tried to make it hard in the final and the boys did a lead out to protect me, Luke attacked to make some sprinters’ teams work so I could have a go before the finish I’d go off the front before. But it didn’t really work out like that, and I had to sprint.

“With 500m to go I knocked the guy next to me and had to freewheel and there was a headwind and I couldn’t really move up , I was in around 10th position and just needed to move out.

"The position I had into the last kilometre was just outside the top 10 and I held that position until the end, when I sprinted - which is not too bad considering I'm not a pure sprinter and I haven't sprinted for a long time!"