Tuur Dens finished eighth in the scratch event at the European Track Cycling Championships on Friday in Apeldoorn, Netherlands. He lost to Imperial Iuri Leitao, European champion in the discipline for the third time in his career. Polish Bartosz Rodek and Austrian Tim Waffler won silver and bronze.
Dens was among the top favorites in the race. In a group of ten riders, he managed to lead a lap ahead of the rest of the competitors, until Leitao launched a devastating attack with 7 laps to go. The Portuguese took more than half a lap in advance and were never caught. The Belgian kilometer and disqualifier champion was unable to join the fight for the medals and finished in eighth place.
Tor Denis won the bronze medal in scratch at the last World Championships organized in Glasgow, Scotland in August 2023. He won the silver medal in 2021 in Roubaix, France. Among the hopefuls, he took bronze (2020) and silver (2021) at the European Championships, but remains without a European medal among the elites.
At 8:18 p.m., the final event of the women's omnium race, the points race, will begin. As this date approaches, Lotte Kubicki occupies fifth place in the standings with 90 points, 24 points behind Norwegian Anita Yvonne Stenberg.
