Belgian champion delivers first Wiggle-Honda victory
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Jolien d'Hoore joined the team this season(Image credit: Bart Hazen)
Jolien D'hoore (Wiggle Honda) on the cobbles(Image credit: Tim de Waele/TDWSport.com)
Jolien D'hoore looking pleased with herself(Image credit: Bart Hazen)
Jolien D'hoore leads Chloe Hosking up the climb(Image credit: Bart Hazen)
Jolien D'hoore was the winner of the trackstand challenge(Image credit: Bart Hazen)
Belgian national champion Jolien D'hoore took her first win for Wiggle-Honda, and at the same time the team's first win of the year, by outsprinting eleven other riders at the Omloop van het Hageland Sunday. She finished with several bike lengths over Chantal Blaak (Boels-Dolmans) and Sara Mustonen (Liv-Plantur).
She was largely guided to victory by teammate Chloe Hosking, who on Saturday had also ridden in Italy at the inaugural Strade Bianche. "Yesterday Chloe did the Strade Bianche, and she rode about 13 hours in the car to get here!" D'hoore said. "She didn't know how she was going today, but she was really strong!
"She did the perfect lead-out for the sprint, so it was really incredible, and I'm really thankful to have her as a teammate."
It was D'hoore's third time at this race, with her best previous finish being 10th in 2012. "The course suits me; it's up and down. It doesn't look very hard on paper, but when you do it, in the final you feel every climb. So that's what makes it hard."
The decisive move came on the penultimate lap of the circuit course, as D'hoore, Hosking and nine others pulled clear. Going into the sprint, she first took Blaak's wheel.
"But then I saw Chloe in front, and I said ‘yeah, maybe I'll take the wheel of Chloe.' So I took Chloe's wheel, and I screamed to her 'let's do it!' and she did a lead-out and it was perfect."
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