South Africa\u2019s Team MTN-Qhubeka enjoyed a superb debut to the Classics season on Saturday with Gerald Ciolek finishing 11th in the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad in Belgium.<\/p>\n
Ciolek won the bunch sprint after 10 riders escaped earlier in the race.<\/p>\n
Luca Paolini of Katusha beat Stijn Vandenbergh (Omega Pharma-Quick Step) in a two-man sprint to the line. Paolini, 36, became the race\u2019s oldest winner.<\/p>\n
\u201cI think the result is okay, to be in front of the first chasing group is good,\u201d said Ciolek. \u201cTo see that my shape is good even if I am a little sick is good.<\/p>\n
\u201cMaybe I could have done a little better but things weren\u2019t too bad today. I tried to be in front with 50km to go but the group went away afterwards and it\u2019s always difficult if you miss the move.<\/p>\n
\u201cAll the big teams were in front but the thing about cycling is you never stop learning. Maybe you think you should react immediately because all the teams are in front and you know they won\u2019t chase each other but I am happy with how things are right now.\u201d<\/p>\n
This result for Ciolek follows on from his fifth place last Saturday in Trofeo Laigueglia.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
South Africa\u2019s Team MTN-Qhubeka enjoyed a superb debut to the Classics season on Saturday with Gerald Ciolek finishing 11th in the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad in Belgium. Ciolek won the bunch sprint after 10 riders escaped earlier in the race. Luca Paolini of Katusha beat Stijn Vandenbergh (Omega Pharma-Quick Step) in a two-man sprint to the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[3258,830,885],"class_list":{"0":"post-18244","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-south-africa","7":"tag-mysport","8":"tag-news","9":"tag-sport","10":"entry"},"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18244","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18244"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18244\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18244"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18244"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.myza.co.za\/press\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18244"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}