In the early flight we received a West Fleming with Abram Stockman (Unibet Tietema Rockets). For the rest, mainly bad luck and falls in the hell of the North, also for our fellow countrymen. Alec Segaert (Lotto) and Gianni Vermeersch (Alpecin-Deceuninck), among others, have no flawless race. Edward Planckaert, who has now done Bear Work for Matthieu van der Poel in Alpecin-DEceuninck.
Unique hat trick
And the Dutchman decreases that. First he runs away in an elite group with Pogacar, Pedersen, Bisseger and teammate Philipsen. At 70 kilometers from the end, Pogacar attacks the first time, but Van der Poel effortlessly closes the hole and also lets Philipsen return.
Although the world champion does make short work of Philipsen, who now only has Van der Poel with him. At 35 kilometers from the line, Pogacar makes a fatal steering error in the bend, VDP benefits and only goes out. Due to a bicycle change, the gap is quickly more than a minute. It will be just as exciting as Van der Poel also has to change bikes, but in the end Pogacar is unable to close the gap. Fortunately, a reprehensible action by a spectator, who threw a bottle into Van der Poel’s face, cannot get the Dutchman out of balance.
For Mathieu van der Poel it is a unique hat trick, who now dissolves his devils in Hell of the North for the third year in a row. In his first participation, Pogacar is nice and second, in a nice battle with Van Aert and Florian Vermeersch, Pedersen is at the longest end for third place.