"It's a pity, especially because Jasper just has the faster legs" - Mathieu van der Poel sprints to second place after Philipsen crashes at the Baloise Belgium Tour
Cycling
After his brilliant lead-out helped Jasper Philipsen take the opening stage of the Baloise Belgium Tour, Mathieu van der Poel was forced to sprint for himself on stage 2 after Philipsen hit the deck late on.
'We had to decide quickly to go for me in the end. I did the sprint, but it's a pity, especially because Jasper just has the faster legs," said van der Poel in his post-stage interview. The Alpecin-Deceuninck star, put up a brave fight, finishing second but was unable to top Fabio Jakobsen.
"I don't know how he fell, so I'll see how he's doing later," continued van der Poel. "It was very hectic after the last corner. I actually wanted to choose Fabio's wheel anyway, but in the end I trusted our own lead-out. We've come a little too far. That's a shame, but of course I don't know if I would have beaten him otherwise. It's a pity that Jasper didn't get around to sprinting."
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- Yawn! There were no ther top class sprinters there so he better have won! Let me know when he beats Jasper or Merlier or Milan!frieders309-04-2025
- Yes, I get that but it wasn’t exactly a good comparison if you ask me, circumstances and competition were very different. Also crashing whilst staying up front is pretty different from crashing and being left behind.Mistermaumau08-04-2025
- Pidcock was riding at a hard enough pace until the sector where Pogacar made up something like 20 seconds in something like... 20 seconds. Pidcock was quite a bit ahead, and suddenly he wasn't. At that point, clearly he would get caught, so might as well get caught sooner and work together. That's just good cycling. (I think the point is, plenty of people win even after they've come down in a crash - Van der Poel crashed at the worlds and won, anyway, for example).RidesHills08-04-2025
- Great sprint, Ineos set him up at exactly the right time, they protected the corners through the turns, and he did the job he was supposed to do. Nice to see him win again.RidesHills08-04-2025
- When Vingo, Rogla, and Wout were all at the height of their powers, a sight to behold.mobk08-04-2025
- To quote the article: riders from Arkéa - B&B Hotels and a few others seized the moment to launch an attack, increasing the pace as Pogacar was briefly off the bike. Not coolmij08-04-2025
- I don’t think it was a matter of easing up. I think it was a matter of attacking. And MVDP said his team would respect similar situations. Perhaps not on the penultimate climb, but I believe they would. To accelerate is a jerk move.mij08-04-2025
- His basic attitude always has been (and we know age often reinforces inherent values), if I’m going down I’m going to try taking you with me.Mistermaumau08-04-2025
- I know it’s tradition and nice but to make the discussion more interesting, if an Arkea rider had driven up to tell Alpecin or UAE to ease off for Mozzato or Vauquelin having a P, would they have been as gentlemanly?Mistermaumau08-04-2025
- That’s probably about right although if they’d talked it over it would have been in all their interests to work together to chase Pog down because those 4 arriving at the finish in that scenario would have left all 4 with a chance of victory.Mistermaumau08-04-2025