World champion Mathieu van der Poel (BKCP-Corendon) handed a blow to his rivals two weeks ahead of his rainbow jersey defence. With one fierce acceleration in the fifth of eight laps he decided the sixth round of the World Cup. With a wheelie at the finish the 20 year-old completed a flawless solo ride, capturing his third World Cup win in a row. When climbing up the podium in Lignières, France the winner – who turns 21 on January 19 – received a big hug from grandfather Raymond Poulidor.
“It was something special to celebrate. I had one really good acceleration. It was enough to get the win,” Van der Poel said.
Despite a troubled start Van der Poel patiently managed to work his way through traffic. Once he reached the front of the race he set off to the victory. “It was a hard race. I got boxed in at the start. I had to come from far. I couldn’t ride my own line because there were some guys ahead of me. It was a bit frustrating at the beginning. I just took it easy. I rode my tempo from the beginning to the end. I saw the guys in front sticking together. I knew the tempo wasn’t high enough. I rode my own tempo to the front. It was quite easy to come back.”
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In the World Cup standings it was runner-up Wout Van Aert (Crelan-Vastgoedservice) who won the battle with European champion Lars van der Haar (Giant-Alpecin). The World Cup leader managed to shake off the Dutch rider in the final lap, and increased his lead over Van der Haar in the standings with five points up to 21 points.
“The gap isn’t huge but today I did a good job,” Van Aert told Telenet Play Sports. During the first half of the race Van Aert controlled the race, always riding in the top three. The first accelerations from Van der Haar and Laurens Sweeck (Era Real Estate-Murprotec) didn’t cause too much damage. Halfway into the race there were still eight riders left in contention for the victory: Van der Poel, Van Aert, Van der Haar and Tom Meeusen (Telenet-Fidea), Laurens Sweeck, Sven Nys (Crelan-AA Drink), Kevin Pauwels (Marlux-Napoleon Games) and home rider Clément Venturini (Cofidis).
When Van der Poel moved to the front in the fifth lap all alarms went off. Van der Haar and Van Aert were attentive and marked his wheel. Meeusen was the rider in fourth place. At the first technical short off-camber climb Van Aert slid out sideways and the two Dutch riders blasted away.
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