Victor Campenaerts (Lotto Soudal) outsprinted Zdenek Stybar (QuickStep-AlphaVinyl) to win the Tour of Leuven-Memorial Jef Scherens race, held on many of the same roads that hosted the 2021 World Championships in the Belgian city.
Campenaerts and Stybar got away together with 24km after an aggressive race and worked together to hold off a group of chasers.
Campenaerts and Stybar went shoulder to shoulder in the sprint but Campenaerts edged clear near the line and was able to celebrate a big win for Lotto Soudal as they fight to avoid relegation from the 2023 WorldTour.
Alexander Kristoff (Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert Matériaux) won the sprint for third place, 20 seconds behind after a chase group was unable to catch the two attackers. Jasper De Buyst was fourth, giving Lotto Soudal even more ranking points.
“I’m extremely happy. We’re building on something in this young team,” Campenaerts said.
“I’m not young anymore but we have a lot of young riders and we were always present in the race today and had control of the race. I’m so happy I could finish it off in the sprint against Stybar.”
Campenaerts played down the importance of the UCI ranking points but Lotto Soudal scored a total of 196 points, which will help them in the fight against relegation and boost morale.
“Points come in handy. We don’t race for points but if we take points they’re handy,” Campenaerts said.
The 199km race covered a long loop south of the city into the rolling hills before returning to Leuven for five 14km circuits on the often technical city streets that saw Julian Alaphilippe win the world title last year.
Arjen Livyns (Bingoal Pauwels Sauces WB), Timo de Jong (VolkerWessels), Andreas Goeman (Tarteletto-Isorex), Jacob Scott (WiV SunGod) and Thijs de Lange (Metec Solarwatt) formed the early break, with Julian Alaphilippe (QuickStep-AlphaVinyl) also briefly showing his face on his return to racing after COVID-19. The world champion went on to finish in a chase group at 1:56.
They were joined by Brent Van Moer (Lotto Soudal), Kenneth Van Rooy (Sport Vlaanderen-Baloise), Robert Scott (Wiv SunGod) and Ceriel Desal (Bingoal Pauwels Sauces WB). Quick-Step-AlphaVinyl missed the move and so were forced to chase on the return to Leuven, with Alpecin-Deceuninck and Israel-Premier Tech helping at times.
With 50km kilometres to go the break lead by less than a minute and that was the moment for Sep Vanmarcke to launch a counter-attack. Campenaerts, Florian Vermeersch, Dries Van Gestel, Stybar, Loïc Vliegen and Clément Russo and Arnaud De Lie jumped into the chase too, putting Lotto Soudal in a commanding position.
De Lie was dropped as the climbs hurt the attackers and so Campenaerts was given the freedom to attack.
He and Stybar joined forces with two laps to go and they never looked back as they held a 30-second advantage, both sensing a chance of victory. Kristoff tried to inspire the chase but the Lotto Soudal riders played a perfect team game to protect Campenaerts up front.
The Hour Record holder tried an attack on the steep city centre Wijnpers climb but Stybar was able to go with him, setting up a sprint finish.
A slight headwind gave Campenaerts an advantage as he sat on Stybar’s wheel and he used every drop of energy left in his legs to win his first ever one-day race of his career.
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