Albeit Niki Terpstra has impressed everyone with his remarkable winning stance at Tour Qatar time-trial yet he is tad surprised at outriding cycling legend Sir Wiggins at the race- who he thought would “beat everybody by forty seconds”.
Sir Wiggings was undoubtedly a top favorite for the time-trial stage 3 time-trial at Qatar Tour, as per the winner & new overall lead Niki Terpstra from Etixx-QuickStep. But, everybody was kind of shocked to find the legendary 2012 Tour France champ settling with the 3rd position, behind Fabian Cancellara & Niki.
“I am really surprised”, stated Terpstra in his leader’s precious gold jersey.
“It was yesterday only that I was confident about Wiggins out riding all of us within 40 seconds only”, he continued. He remarked that he was pleasantly surprised to beat the legend.
Sir Bradley shortly held his best timing at 14 to 12 minutes till multiple world champ Fabian finished at around 14-11. Niki, the winner of Paris-Roubaix and Qatar Tour, finished as the fastest & moved towards race lead status with a fantastic 14-03.
“It was really great for me (the time-trial)”, shared Niki. “In the initial kilometers, it was quite steady for me. I planned to save my energy for head-wind. That is where my DS boosted me with his continuous ‘Up! Up!’”
The racing course covered flat roads surrounding Lusail Iconic Stadium, famous for handball championships & Moto GP. The wind that blew up till 40 km/hour kicked up volumes of sand & played quite a crucial role.
“The very distance probably was more compatible for me in comparison to Sir Bradley & my normal bike proved good here. I was very much motivated for classification which is again a huge thing in the time-trials”, Niki added in.