The Molenberg can be where Omloop Het Nieuwsblad is won, but on Saturday, it very well could have been where Mathieu van der Poel lost the race. In a split second on the rain-slicked Belgian cobbles, the difference between his maiden victory and a hard crash was measured in millimeters.
Before Van der Poel won his maiden outing in the opening Spring Classic with a solo attack on the Muur van Geraardsbergen, he was behind Rick Pluimers of Tudor Pro Cycling on the Molenberg. There, with 45 kilometres to go, Pluimers slid out on the greasy cobbled ascent and crashed hard, face-first.
Van der Poel swerved right and came within millimetres of hitting Pluimers' head, but managed to both avoid him and keep his own bike upright despite what looked to be impossible odds.
For Pluimers, it was the end of the race. He went down on his face and broke two of his front teeth on the hard cobblestones.
"I immediately felt like my teeth were gone," Pluimers told WielerFlits, adding that it wasn't too painful. "They're probably broken in a good spot, but I still have to go to the dentist."
Pluimers was in the right spot in the race but the wrong part of the cobbles. As he tried to move from right to left, his tyres slid out and he went down hard.
"I just slid off. I wanted to follow Florian," Pluimers said. "I was just coming off the head of a cobblestone when I felt my wheel slip. Then I hit the ground face down. That was really frustrating. I think I could have done a lot today, because I felt good. But when you crash, you can't show it.
"I would have preferred to have decided the race differently. It's a shame. The Molenberg is a crucial moment in the race. If you crash there, you know you're holding up your guys. My apologies to those guys. I would have preferred to stay on the bike as well."
One rider he didn't hold up was Van der Poel, who, when asked about the incident, apologised as well. He admitted he had no idea how he avoided crashing.
"I want to say sorry to the rider of Tudor, because I almost rode over his head. I think that I had nowhere to go. I unclipped, but luckily, I could find my pedal quite fast again. And then at the top, I joined Florian [Vermeersch, third], who was really strong today as well. And in the end, that was the decisive moment of the race."
Before those final 45 kilometres, brutally cold, wet and windy conditions punished the peloton and caused a slew of crashes. Lotto-Intermarché were banking on a result from Arnaud De Lie and worked most of the day to keep him in contention, but a single moment knocked him out of the race.
"This was the most dangerous Omloop of my life," De Lie told Sporza.be after the race. "There was a huge amount of nervousness in the peloton, especially with this wind.
"Initially, it was actually a perfect day for me. OK, it was impossible to follow Mathieu on the Molenberg, but after that, I was up there with the best. Only five kilometres from the Muur, someone fell next to me, and I broke my wheel. That was the end of the story."
There were at least a half dozen crashes throughout the day, with numerous riders involved such as Stefan Küng (Tudor), Magnus Sheffield (Ineos), Rui Oliveira and Rune Herregodts (UAE Team Emirates-XRG), Kaden Groves (Alpecin-Premier Tech), Matej Mohorič (Bahrain Victorious), and Lidl-Trek's Otto Vergaerde.
Visma-Lease a Bike's sprinter Matthew Brennan was also involved in a crash and did not finish, but his team director Maarten Wynants assured Sporza that he was OK.
"At first glance, it looks like it's mainly just abrasions," Wynants said. "It's good that he made it to the bus under his own power. Now we'll investigate further and see if he can possibly start tomorrow."
Fortunately for the riders, the rain has moved off and while it will be chilly for Sunday's Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne, it will be windy again.
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Crash video
