Niels Vandeputte secures a dominant victory in the final round of Exact Cross: "I didn't go full throttle but the gap kept growing..."
Cyclocross
Niels Vandeputte took off to an impressive solo in the Sint-Niklaas round of Exact Cross on Saturday. And while it seemed like may have been just wasting his energy riding away early, Vandeputte quickly proved he was simply this confident in his legs. And his competitors have never seen him again until the finish.
However, it wasn't really his plan to ride in front for an hour, he admitted afterwards. "Actually not, before the start we said that it was going to be important. In the first lap I wanted to ride up the hill first. Then I had a small gap, but I just kept riding at a good pace," he said in the flash interview.
"I didn't go full throttle there, but it went from 5 to 12 to 20 seconds. Then I thought: okay, there's something in that...," the rider who lives in Brecht continued. "You also know that they don't go full throttle behind you. Sometimes they do, sometimes they don't. In the final laps they can still come up short, that's why I kept riding."
But the counter-attack from chasing group never came and so the Alpecin-Deceuninck rider sailed smoothly towards a victory: "Then it went towards a minute and I thought: then they have to come out of the corner to fight seriously. I'm glad I was able to bring this in like that," said Vandeputte.
All in all, Vandeputte can look back on a very successful cyclocross winter, with a nice score of four victories, including a first breakthrough in World Cup against elites. "I have certainly taken steps in the right direction. Although I did miss the podium at the major championships, which was a shame. I was also a bit sick before the World Championships, which was disappointing. But it is nice to end the season with good legs."
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