Van der Poel Wins Brabantse Pijl

Van der Poel Wins Brabantse Pijl

Mathieu van der Poel (Corendon-Circus) grabbed another impressive single-day road victory today, winning a four-man sprint in Overijse to win Brabantse Pijl.

How he did it

Van der Poel joined Julian Alaphilippe (Deceuninck-Quick-Step), Tim Wellens (Lotto-Soudal), and Michael Matthews (Sunweb) to form a four-man breakaway group late in the race. The group survived attempts by the peloton to reel them in and battled it out for the win in a sprint, where van der Poel was able to pull away from Alaphilippe and Wellens.

“I’m very happy and also proud to be there with three big names in front, and to finish it off like this is kind of like a dream,” van der Poel said.

“I said before this Classics season that this race suits me the best and I’m glad I could prove that.”

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Starting from Leuven and covering 196-kilometers of hills, the race saw a fair number of attacks and re-groupings throughout the afternoon. Finally, Alaphilippe launched the attack that stuck for the winning quarter. With 17 kilometers to go, Alaphilippe attacked the Hertstraat climb and van der Poel, Wellens and Matthews followed.

The quartet quickly bridged to, then dropped, race leader Daryl Impey (Mitchelton-Scott).

Matthews led the group into the final corner, but Van der Poel had the legs to pull away in the finishing straight. No one even came close to matching him.  Next up, we see what van der Poel can put together at the Amstel Gold Race.