Wout Van Aert (Vastgoedservice-Golden Palace) won his fifth out of five rounds in the Bpost Bank Trophy on Saturday afternoon. During the extremely fast Soudal Scheldecross in Antwerp, Belgium, the 21 year-old Belgian rider stormed away in the sand from World Champion Mathieu van der Poel (BKCP-Corendon) with more than two laps to go.
Van Aert strengthens his lead in the Bpost classification up to 4:08 on Kevin Pauwels (Sunweb-Napoleon Games), who finished fourth in Antwerp at 34 seconds.
“Of course I’m pleased with this victory. On a course like today it’s always going to be hard because you don’t know what to expect. Today the differences weren’t big. Only deep into the race when everybody was getting tired I was able to make the difference,” Van Aert told Sporza.
ADVERTISEMENT
Oddly enough, a mechanical from Van Aert turned the race around in his favour in the seventh of 11 laps. Van Aert was forced to hop off his bike very early on a steep climb while riding in second position behind Van der Poel with more than 10 riders right behind them.
European champion Lars van der Haar (Giant-Alpecin) rode in third position and hopped off too, but fourth-placed Michael Vanthourenhout (Sunweb-Napoleon Games) rode straight into the bike of the Dutch rider. Suddenly the course was blocked and Van der Poel and Van Aert were offered a free bonus. Van der Haar was the biggest victim.
“I was thrown to the ground in an odd way and my arm was blocked. I popped my shoulder half out of the socket, which hurt massively. I needed to sit down to get it back into position. Due to the adrenaline the pain quickly disappeared after two climbs but I was put at distance of course,” Van der Haar told Sporza.
You can read more at Cyclingnews.com
via Cyclingnews Latest Race Results http://ift.tt/1URjjXo
No comments:
Post a Comment