"Mathieu is in super good shape and we will try to lead him to victory" - Jasper Philipsen looking to return the favour at Paris-Roubaix after Scheldeprijs win

In bunch sprints there are rarely men to beat, but with the spring Jasper Philipsen was having he could be termed as that for today's Scheldeprijs. Sure enough the Belgian managed to take the win, outsprinting Sam Welsford and Mark Cavendish to the line.

“It was very nice to see that we took the initiative. I thought that was quite ambitious, but we managed to make it to the finish line,” Philipsen said in a post-race interview. The Belgian team had the leadout dialed, with van der Poel contributing in the work to keep him near the head of the peloton. “Mathieu did a very long turn. That only works with someone like Mathieu, and then we also had strong guests like Jonas Rickaert and Ramon Sinkeldam. They made it quite comfortable in a hectic peloton.”

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The Belgian was rather blocked when opening up his spring, but had the power to kick it in the final meters and take his fourth win of the season, all of them within the last few weeks. “This one is Super important. As a sprinter, this is one of the races of the year, so I rate it highly,” he said. After his success at the Classic Brugge-De Panne, Philipsen has won the two most competitive sprint one-day races of the year so far.

As was the case with Lorena Wiebes who won the women's race, Philipsen will race Paris-Roubaix but in support of his leader. There he will be leading Mathieu van der Poel out into the cobbled sectors. “Mathieu is in super good shape and we will try to lead him to victory. The team is going to be important in that, so we hope to get to the final with a lot of men," he concluded. 

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Victory for 🇧🇪 Jasper Philipsen after a royal sprint in Schoten! 👑 #SP23 #SPmen

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