Hanseeuw and Decaesteker confirm in second stage Roc du Maroc
The second stage in the six-day Roc du Maroc stage race took the riders from Ghasset to Ait Toumert over a distance of 102km. The first easier section took the riders through a riverbed, among other places, to the first checkpoint. Three duos were able to separate shortly after the start with Hanseeuw - Decaesteker, Van Aelbroeck - Seynaeve and Ossieur - Vaes.
Shortly after this checkpoint at km 35 began a 22km climb towards 2450m altitude with a particularly steep final 6km. Decaesteker: “I was keen to start the climb first and set my own pace, but due to a descending chain from teammate Jelle, we suddenly saw the competition accelerate. However, we were able to come back quickly and rode away on the various plateaus in the initial phase of the climb. Especially the final kilometres were leaden with sections up to 17%. I had a difficult moment after 4h of racing and had to ask my buddy to hold back, but at the end it was better again.”
With that, Jelle Hanseeuw and Frederik Decaesteker renewed their win from yesterday with this time 14m18 ahead of Michael Ossieur - Stefaan Vaes who finished handsomely second after their fourth place yesterday. The big challengers of the first day Michiel Van Aelbroeck and Bart Seynaeve mainly lost touch on the climb and ran in at 19m31.
Leaders in the grandmaster class Pascal De Kort and Johnny Goetschalckx finished fourth today, 39 minutes behind. Johnny had some intestinal problems on the first day and could barely get a bite through his throat so he did not feel fully recovered from the previous day's efforts.
Luc Bellings and Alice Pirard were able to reaffirm their sixth-place finish from yesterday and remain firm leaders in the mixed category.
Tomorrow will be a shorter stage of 76km and 1230 altimeters towards El Kelaa M'Gouna with some nasty gradients especially in the middle section. Let's see if Hanseeuw and Decaesteker can score three out of three then?