"Maybe I should have been a little more aggressive" - Jasper Philipsen loses Scheldeprijs in positioning battle

Jasper Philipsen was unable to defend his title at the Scheldeprijs. The top favorite was not ideally placed in the sprint and thus had to come from too far away to defeat his ex-teammate Tim Merlier.

Alpecin-Deceuninck seemed to emerge just at the right time in the final. With 1.5 kilometers to go, the sprint train was brought into position. "But just at the end we lost each other," Philipsen looks back on the hectic last kilometer. "So I got a bit trapped and couldn't choose the right wheel."

Philipsen came up in the last meters, but ultimately did not really come close to Merlier. Second, can the winner of Milano-Sanremo live with that? "I am satisfied with the feeling and that I stayed on the bike, but of course I would have preferred to win."

No wonder Philipsen is somewhat disappointed that he couldn't really complete his sprint. "Although I didn't feel like making a big deal about Sunday," Philipsen said, referring to Paris-Roubaix, where he will start as one of the favorites. "Maybe I should have been a little more aggressive, but it's still a nice sprint. I will definitely come back to win this competition in the coming years."