Jasper Philipsen wins opening stage of Baloise Belgium Tour: "I had a very good day, but hopefully I'm not at my peak yet"

Jasper Philipsen was able to raise his hands after yet another brilliant team performance in opening stage of Baloise Belgium Tour. Alpecin-Deceuninck opened the race with very early attacks, when Mathieu van der Poel and Ramon Sinkeldam caught up to the early breakaway and made other teams in peloton spend lots of energy to reel them back in.

"It was a course that lends itself to an attacking race. It was twisting and turning, up and down. Then it's nice to force something," said Philipsen in a quick post-race interview.

"The second time at Kruisberg, we wanted to continue with the team. We wanted to play on the surprise a little bit there. But that attempt was difficult because of the headwind."

"I had a very good day, but hopefully I'm not at my peak yet," he says. "We have a very strong team here. Mathieu also leads out in the last straight line. He made the sign that he still could and I let him in. That shows that he is okay."