When Jürgen Roelandts launched a solo attack in extremely windy conditions at nearly 80 kilometres from the finish in Gent-Wevelgem his chances to win the race seemed slim. The Belgian 29-year-old managed to ride away from an elite chase group, that also featured teammate Jens Debusschere, and build up a lead of more than two minutes. Sadly, his heroic ride was brought to an end with 17km to the finish line, and his hard work didn’t pay dividends for the Lotto-Soudal team as Debusschere failed to profit from his protected position in the chase group. Debusschere finished fifth and Roelandts seventh.
At the finish line, a muddy Debusschere was clearly disappointed that Roelandts was unable to make it to Wevelgem with the prestigious win.
“Halfway in the race Jürgen told me that if you can win this race then you’re a strong rider. He told me that he would try early because the tailwind would make it hard for others to come back. Terpstra should not have come back because then Vandenbergh would not have worked so hard. After riding through Ieper we saw him riding. Vandenbergh did everything to get him back and then you know it’s over,” Debusschere said.
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Despite riding on the wheels in the chase group for more than 50 kilometres, Debusschere wasn’t fresh enough to deal with eventual winner Luca Paolini (Katusha) and most other riders in the group. It didn’t surprise him.
“I wasn’t super all day long. I told him that it was all for him today. I would try to get him out of the wind as much as possible. It was a very hard race and when you’re not super then you can’t win. It was good but not good enough.”
Nevertheless, Debusschere dealt well with the windy conditions. Being a sprinter he carries around some extra weight that others would have wanted on Sunday afternoon. “I saw riders being blown into the ditch. I’ve never seen it before. It’s the first time in my career I’m happy to weigh a few extra pounds. I’ve always seen it as a disadvantage but not today,” he said.
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