Florian Vermeersch settles for second behind Mathieu van der Poel at Gravel Worlds: "it was all about who was the strongest. And I think everyone saw who that was"

The Gravel World Championships today put forward some of the best riders in the world in off-road sectors. A race that favoured road riders, it was no surprise to see the World Tour riders swarm the front. Florian Vermeersch had proven his worth in the past in such race and did so again today. He finished second and was the closest to Mathieu van der Poel, but the Belgian admits that he was still far from the victory.

From far away, van der Poel was on the attack, whilst Vermeersch raced more conservatively. “It was a tough race from the start. The pace was very high and when we arrived at the local lap [In Leuven], there were only a few riders left." The Lotto Dstny rider has experience racing in these roads (and trails) and managed to have very good legs towards the decisive section of the race.

"I knew that when we were seven riders, I had to be one of the first to jump away. Ideally, I would get Mathieu or someone else to join me," he explains. That is exactly what happened, and with a strong attack the duo managed to go up the road. Out of all the Belgians he was the strongest on the road, but he had a strong rivals who he would be contesting the rainbow jersey against.

With 13 kilometers to go, in one of the final climbs in the final circuit, van der Poel attacked and Vermeersch had no response. From there on it was a matter of hanging on for second place, a task that didn't prove to be hard as they had built up several minutes over the chasing group.

“At that moment, it was all about who was the strongest. And I think everyone saw who that was," he admits. "You always hope, of course, but I knew pretty quickly that he was better than me. His turns were longer and faster. I knew then that it was probably going to be for second place. This second place feels incredibly good. You can’t imagine that," the future UAE Team Emirates rider concluded.