photo credits @OHN
Mathieu van der Poel opened his Spring Classics account with a stellar win in today’s Omloop Niewsblad, storming to victory after a blistering attack on the Muur van Geraardsbergen, later crossing the finish almost half a minute ahead of his closets rivals.
Meanwhile, Tim van Dijke (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) won the sprint for second ahead of Florian Vermeersch (UAE Team Emirates-XRG), who completed the podium.
Race Highlights
An early breakaway group containing Jelte Krijnsen (Jayco-AlUla), Alexis Renard (Cofidis), Clément Alleno (Burgos-Burpullet BH), Vincent Van Hemelen (Flanders-Baloise) and Alexys Brunel (TotalEnergies) managed to escape the peloton during the first phase of the race, with Vermmersch later attacking from out of the chase along the Molenberg, while van der Poel and Van Dijke eventually caught up with him at the summit.
From there, the trio quickly made their way to the remnants of the breakaway, with Vermeersch leading onto the Kapelmuur as van der Poel closely stalked him before moving to the front along the steepest sections of the legendary climb.
With 16 kilometers to go, van der Poel attacked on the Muur van Geraardsbergen, easily opening up a slight gap of 20 seconds.
Van der Poel later took on the Bosberg alone, ultimately arriving in Ninove with a 22 second margin over van Dijke and Vermeersch, who tried to chase down the Dutch rider in earnest, while the main field led by Christophe Laporte (Visma-Lease a Bike) rolled in half a minute behind them.
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