The
Alpecin-Deceuninck leader also thanked his teammates for the swift lead-out. "Yes, Jonas (Rickaert, ed.) was really strong today. We're all starting to get through it a bit after our difficult training camp, I think. Oscar Riesebeek was also super good today, for example."
While Philipsen was delivered perfectly, there was a danger he wouldn't even get to open his sprint. The train almost got boxed in at a critical point. "We started on the right, that's always a risk, but suddenly everything opened up and I was able to do a nice sprint."
Alpecin-Deceuninck was active throughout the day. At fifty kilometers to go, Philipsen's teammates blew the race open one of cobbled sectors: "The course lent itself to making the race a bit tough," Philipsen explains. "Certainly that cobblestone section with 6 kilometers to go was tough. It's always fun to open up the race and put the competition under pressure."
It's a sweet revenge after nearly crashing in yesterday's sprint. "I don't really know what happened," he reflected. "I don't think I would have been able to stay upright like that a second time. It was a bad assessment, but I'm glad it turned out well."