the dutch runner Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck) was declared the winner of the general back to belgiumwhich culminated in a 194.8-kilometer route starting and ending in Brussels, where the best was his compatriot Fabio Jakobsen (Soudal-Quick Step).
After several attempts to build the most relevant escape of the day, it ended up with 25 kilometers in dispute. It consists of seven units: the Belgians Alex Colman (Team Flanders-Baloise), Kay De Bruyckere (Pauwels Sauzen-Bingoal), Kobe Vanoverschelde (Tarteletto-Isorex) and Thimo Willens (VolkerWessels Cycling Team); the Italians Stefano Gandin (Team Corratec – Selle Italia) and Andrea Pietrobon (EOLO-Kometa); and the Dutch Lucas Janssen (BEAT Cycling Club).
Without any connection to the fight for the general, they managed to gain more than a minute and a half, but as kilometers passed, the group began to break up. First Colman, De Bruyckere and Janssen were pursued; shortly after the two transalpines and in the absence of 14 for the arrival Vanoverschelde and Willens.
From that moment, the teams with candidates for the victory of the day began to work to make life easier for them, unleashing a good fight to gain positions until reaching the last meters of the stage which culminated in the great iron molecule known as Atomium , symbol of Brussels.
Van der Poel, with the overall secured, launched a sprint for his Belgian teammate Jasper Philipsen. But the lack of understanding led to a telling gap between the two which Jakobsen took advantage of to break through and thus play the winning card, sealing his second win of the day in this edition.
In Van der Poel’s case, he took his first final victory of the season in a stage round and added to that victory in Milan-Sanremo and Paris-Roubaix. Second, 40 seconds behind, was the Norwegian Soren Warenskjold (Uno-X) and third, 53 seconds behind, the Dane Casper Pedersen (Soudal-Quick Step).
Source: La Verdad
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