"The race is so long that you should never give up" - Mikkel Bjerg about the comeback of UAE Team Emirates at Tour of Flanders

It seemed that without Tadej Pogacar in their ranks, UAE Team Emirates were a bit toothless at the Tour of Flanders, away from the main action. Yet in the final they emerged in the chasing group with four riders and eventually snapped a 3-4-5 in the finish behind Mathieu van der Poel, only losing in the sprint to Luca Mozzato. Mikkel Bjerg hopes to get more freedom in upcoming races after arriving fourth in the Monument.

"It's probably my biggest result," he says to Feltet.dk after the finish. "I will say that. Also with the way it was raced today. It was an insanely hard race with the rain and the fact that we all had to walk up the Koppenberg."

"It was an incredibly tough bike race, where we may have been at the back, but the race is so long that you should never give up. In the end, there were four of us in the final and we got a podium from here," Bjerg describes. "We were trying to catch Bettiol, and actually we were giving up a bit and didn't think we could do it."

"Nils is probably the fastest of us, so he had my wheel. So we could almost do a long leadout, because Tim attacked with 1000 meters again. So actually we ran the final perfectly, I think," explains Bjerg.