BinckBank Tour: Jakobsen wins opener in Bolsward

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Fabio Jakobsen (Quick-Step Floors) survived a late crash to win stage 1 of the 2018 BinckBank Tour. The young Dutchman came through the centre of the road in the closing 150 metres to beat Marcel Kittel (Katusha-Alpecin) and Caleb Ewan (Mitchelton-Scott) to the line.

The stage was marred by a number of late crashes in the closing kilometres with road furniture, a tense peloton and wet conditions contributing to the chaos.

Quick-Step Floors, however, made light work of the conditions and allowed other teams to shoulder the responsibility of pulling back a late break and then leading out the sprint.

In the closing few hundred metres, the Belgian team took the initiative with Jakobsen opening his sprint on the left before drifting into the middle of the road. On the other side, Ewan hit out for the line, while Kittel was forced to start from further back after another disjointed lead-out. The German had the speed but ran out of road before Jakobsen could celebrate his win and the first leader's jersey in this year's race.

"It's my biggest victory since turning pro and I'm really proud of myself and the team, who put their confidence in me this morning and did a perfect job," Jakobsen said. "We had bad weather and the peloton was really nervous as we approached the line, but the team was flawless and starting the race in this manner gives us great confidence."

A late fall in the closing two kilometres saw a number of riders hit the deck, including Katusha's Vyacheslav Kuznetsov, but Jakobsen made use of a well-drilled Quick-Step outfit, which has now won 54 times this season at an average of a win every four days. For the 21-year-old Jakobsen, this was a third victory of the season after a breakthrough win at Scheldeprijs, and then a stage at the Tour des Fjords in Norway.

The stage was marked by an early break that included Dimitri Peyskens (WB Aqua Protect-Veranclassic), Thomas Sprengers (Sport Vlaanderen-Baloise), Manuele Boaro (Bahrain-Merida), Julius Van den Berg (EF Education First-Drapac), Elmar Reinders (Roompot) and Dries De Bondt (Veranda's Willems Crelan).

The six-man move was never afforded more than a few minutes, with a sprint-heavy field keen to dictate the outcome of the stage. Mitchelton Scott posted Svein Tuft on the front and the veteran controlled the pace for much of the stage. The leaders sat at 45 seconds with 20km to go, with their fate virtually sealed as a number of sprint trains began to position themselves near the front of the peloton. Trek-Segafredo, AG2R La Mondiale and EF Education First-Drapac joined the action, with the break eventually caught with 13km to go.

Jan-willem Van Schip (Roompot) took a late flyer from the bunch but he was swapped as crashes took Magnus Cort, Rik Zabel and Dmitriy Gruzdev out of the fold. As the line approached Quick-Step appeared from nowhere and not for the first time this season their lead-out appeared to operate on another level entirely. 

If you've ever wanted to know what it feels like to be part of a top-level cycling team, and to be on the ground, inside the barriers, at the Tour de France, then RUNNING WITH WOLVES will take you there. It is available to rent for $3.99 USD or buy for $6.99 USD.

You can also still purchase our first two films, THE HOLY WEEK and CRESCENDO, on Vimeo.

RUNNING WITH WOLVES from Cyclingnews Films on Vimeo, produced by La Pédale and a special thanks to Quick-Step Floors.

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