Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck) won the 2023 Elfstedenronde, beating big sprint rivals Caleb Ewan (Lotto Dstny) and Fabio Jakobsen (Soudal-QuickStep) three weeks before the start of the Tour de France.
The Belgian one-day race came down to a bunch finish and Philipsen was comfortably the quickest with a searing sprint up the left-hand side of the road.
Philipsen had to do it the hard way, losing lead-out man Jonas Rickaert to a crash earlier in the race. In a messy run-in to Bruges, his remaining teammates had to close a slight split to Jakobsen, who'd latched onto a three-man Uno-X lead-out.
Alexander Kristoff was on support duties for Erlend Blikra for the Scandinavian team and hit the front until Ewan's lead-out man Jasper De Buyst stormed to the front in the final 400 metres, then leaving Blikra having to open from range.
As this was happening, Philipsen sensed his moment and hit out on the left, sprinting into the slipstream of the fading Kristoff and then moving out in front of Jakobsen and Blikra.
Jakobsen looked to then hit out to the right, with Ewan launching even wider and coming past the European champion on the line. But neither could match Philipsen, who collected his fifth victory of the season.
"Uno-X had did really strong lead-out, there was also a small gap, but my teammates brought me back in a good position, I could open my sprint with 200 metres to go and it was enough," said Philipsen.
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