Fabio Jakobsen (Soudal-QuickStep) sprinted to his fourth win of the season on stage 2 of the Baloise Belgium Tour in Knokke-Heist, the European champion beating Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck) in the uphill drag to the finish.
Jakobsen now takes over the race lead, though he’s tied on time with Van der Poel.
The dash to the line in the seaside town saw Soudal-QuickStep take over on the front, with lead-out man Michael Mørkøv delivering Jakobsen to the perfect place to start his sprint. After launching, the Dutchman had Uno-X right behind him, struggling to close the gap before Van der Poel shot up the middle of the road with De Buyst on his wheel.
The effort was too late to make any impression on Jakobsen, however, as he eased across the line to secure the win while Van der Poel and De Buyst sped past Kristoff at the death.
At 4km out from the finish, two of the top contenders for the win – stage 1 winner Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck) and Caleb Ewan (Lotto-Dstny) – were both taken out of the running after a crash near the front of the peloton. While Philipsen was quick to get up and start racing again, Ewan lingered in the road for some time and was clearly in some discomfort after hitting the ground hard, with a team update later saying that while he had several abrasions, and a small swelling of a nerve, he would start the time trial on Friday .
“We had to decide really fast that I was going to do the sprint. It’s really a shame for Jasper because he had the fast legs,” Van der Poel said after the finish.
“It was really hectic after the final corner. I wanted to get in front of Fabio, but I trusted in our own lead-out. We were just a little far back. It’s a shame, but I don’t think I could’ve beaten him today.”
Earlier in the stage, James Fouché (Bolton Equities Black Spoke), Javier Serrano (Eolo-Kometa), Aaron Van Poucke (Flanders-Baloise), Stijn Daemen (Beat), Daan van Sintmaartensdijk (VolkerWessels), and Etienne van Empel (Corratec-Selle Italia) made the break of the day.
However, with the stage being largely pan-flat and with a selection of top sprinters in the peloton, there was little hope of the move sticking to the final. The breakaway riders would hang on until around the 35km to go mark, at which point the peloton – driven by Alpecin-Deceuninck, Soudal-QuickStep, and Lotto-Dstny – pushed on in the crosswinds.
There were splits, but it was all back together again for the ‘golden kilometre’ at 14km from the finish. Van der Poel made his bid for the race lead there, grabbing two bonus seconds at one of the three sprints.
However, he’d miss out on countback with Jakobsen winning the stage and holding Van der Poel off, thanks to that placing. In the final run to that sprint, the same mix of top sprinters’ teams again controlled the race, though Alpecin-Deceuninck and Lotto-Dstny were unlucky to lose their contenders late on.
In the end, it was Soudal-QuickStep’s day, with the Belgian squad once again showing why their lead-out train is so feared as Mørkøv, Casper Pedersen, Tim Declerq and co helped Jakobsen to his 42nd career win.
Results
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