Off the heels of winning a stage at the Tour of Denmark, S\u00f8ren W\u00e6renskjold (Uno-X Mobility) secured the prologue victory and pulled on the first leader’s jersey at the five-day Deutschland Tour.<\/p>\n
The Norwegian rider posted the fastest time of 3:31 minutes across the 3.1km course in Essan, winning the race against the clock by a fraction of a second ahead of runner-up Samuel Watson (Ineos Grenadiers) and just over one second faster than third-placed Marco Haller (Tudor Pro Cycling).<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n “Maybe a little bit,” W\u00e6renskjold said when asked if he was surprised by his prologue victory. “The last time I did a prologue it was at l’Avenir, so at least a few years ago. I was a bit excited for this race and a little bit nervous. I tried to go full-gas and it worked out.”<\/p>\n You may like<\/p>\n W\u00e6renskjold now leads the overall classification by one second ahead of Watson and two seconds ahead of Haller as the race heads into stage 1 from Essen to Herford on Thursday.<\/p>\n “It’s one or two harder stages and sprint stages, so hopefully we can do well in the general classification. We came here with a good sprint team and with some boys, so hopefully we can hang on in the harder climbs also,” he said.<\/p>\n The opening stage of the Pro Series Deutschland Tour saw a high-quality field that included Visma-Lease a Bike’s Wout van Aert, who will work for Matthew Brennan, along with rival sprinters Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek), Kaden Groves (Alpecin-Deceuninck), Alexander Kristoff (Uno-X Mobility), and Danny van Poppel (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe).<\/p>\n While four stages are flat and two are hilly, the race could go to either a puncheur or a sprinter after five days of racing.<\/p>\n W\u00e6renskjold said that a good warm-up was the key to his success in the flat 3.1km time trial, and that he was able to gradually increase his power as he raced back into Essen.<\/p>\n “I tried to at least have the rollers during the bike check. I was on a spare bike on the rollers next to the start line. I got out a little bit better with more blood flow in my legs, compared to sitting down for eight to ten minutes before a time trial. I think that was the key, to do well, today,” he said.<\/p>\n “I also tried to go all-out and through the corners, try to go hard from the start, but also progressively increasing power through the race. I tried to hit that maximum feeling of lactic acid in the legs at the end.”<\/p>\n Ilan van Wilder (Soudal-QuickStep) set an early benchmark of 3:38, but that would only be good enough to reach the top 20 by the end of this time trial.<\/p>\n Maikel Zijlaard (Tudor Pro cycling) posted a time of 3:34, which stood its ground for much longer, but he finished in seventh place.<\/p>\n Haller was the next to arrive at the hot seat with a time of 3:33, and good enough for a podium spot. Out-pacing Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike), who finished fifth, and Laurence Pithie (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) in fourth.<\/p>\n W\u00e6renskjold raced in with the new fastest time of 3:31, with an average speed of 52.6kph, and the rider to come closest to that benchmark was runner-up Watson with a time of 3:32.<\/p>\n