It wasn't quite in the anticipated fashion, but Visma-Lease A Bike's dominance of Omloop Het Nieuwsblad continues for a third year after Jan Tratnik won a two-up sprint against Nils Politt (UAE Team Emirates) in Meebeke. The pair escaped with 9km left in a breathless race that took on an unexpected new guise in the finale.
Wout van Aert won the sprint for third place just behind the front two, though the Belgian had looked a likely winner for much of the afternoon. Indeed, it initially appeared as though Visma-Lease A Bike had squandered a winning hand when the race came back together over the final climb of the Bosberg.
Visma-Lease had dictated terms and conditions throughout the day, splitting the peloton with 130km still remaining, and they had three riders – Van Aert, Matteo Jorgenson and Christophe Laporte – in the six-man break that formed with 50km to go.
It looked like the decisive move, and Visma-Lease A Bike trio duly worked to outmanoeuvre their breakaway companions Tom Pidcock (Ineos), Arnaud De Lie (Lotto-Dstny) and Toms Skuijsn (Lidl-Trek) from there on in. They looked to have succeeded when Jorgenson slipped away with 21km remaining, building up a sizeable buffer while Van Aert and Laporte policed affairs behind.
Jorgenson led over the Muur van Geraardsbergen, but the expected reinforcements from Van Aert never arrived. Instead, the peloton, which had been engaged in a seemingly forlorn chase, had closed in on the break of the day.
Tim Wellens (UAE Team Emirates), who made a remarkable solo surge to bridge up on the Muur served as the rabbit, and there were shades of the immortal 2011 Tour of Flanders when the chasers suddenly and unexpectedly clattered back into view as they climbed out of Geraardsbergen.
Jorgenson and the chasing break would be caught on the upper slopes of the Bosberg, as the front group swelled to 25 or so riders. There was scarcely a moment’s respite to be had, however, as Van Aert and Laporte stretched out the group before Tratnik launched his own, canny move with a shade over 9km to go.
Politt came with him, and the German was generous in his efforts. Too generous, perhaps. He led through the final kilometre before Tratnik powered past to claim the win.
"In the end, last k, I was a bit worried whether I could win the sprint. Then I saw that Nils started quite early and was already pulling, so I started believing I could win," said Tratnik.
The Slovenian impressed at last week's Volta ao Algarve, but he confessed to surprise at his victory here, not least because he was not among the five Visma riders in the front group of 30 that formed with 130km still to race.
"Today I was more in a domestique role. The guys did a really good job in splitting the race. I was behind a little bit. I could be behind – not relaxed – but I knew we had five guys in front. Then in the end, I just kept believing. We caught back all the guys and I went to counter-attack and in the end I won."
In the run-in, Lotto-Dstny worked to shut down Tratnik and Politt on behalf of De Lie, but it was Van Aert who came through to complete the Visma celebration, while Oliver Naesen (Decathlon-AG2R) took fourth ahead of Laporte.
It wasn’t the expected winner, and the race certainly didn’t run according to their precise plans, but Visma's strength in depth still told in the end.
How it unfolded
The start of Omloop Het Nieuwsblad marks the changing of the seasons as much as it does the beginning of a bike race. The temperatures may still be wintry in Belgium this weekend, but the peloton gathered at 't Kuipke velodrome in Ghent with the scent of Spring in the air. The Tour of Flanders is just five weeks away, and this is the first big rendezvous of the build-up.
All eyes, inevitably, were on Wout van Aert and his Visma-Lease A Bike dream team that included European champion Christophe Laporte, Tiesj Benoot and new arrival Matteo Jorgenson. The widespread expectation was that Van Aert et al would look to put their stamp on the race from the very outset, but instead the Dutch squad allowed a degree of leeway in the opening phase and a group of nine riders slipped away shortly after the flag dropped.
Lars Boven (Alpecin-Deceuninck), Samuele Battistella (Astana), Alexis Gougeard (Cofidis), Sander De Pestel (Decathlon-AG2R), Manlio Moro (Movistar), Sean Flynn (DSM-Firmenich PostNL), Frank van den Broek (DSM-Firmenich PostNL), Elias Maris (Flanders-Baloise) and Jelle Vermoote (Bingoal-WB) would have 4:40 in hand by the time they hit the cobbles at Haagohoek.
The race took on a different guise in the second hour, when the men in yellow and black massed on the front, and their forcing split the peloton in two shortly after they swung through Kruisem after 62km. The break was swept up and spat out shortly afterwards, leaving 30 or so riders in front, including five from Visma-Lease A Bike – Van Aert, Jorgenson, Benoot, Laporte and Edoardo Affini – Arnaud De Lie (Lotto-Dstny), Gianni Moscon, Kasper Asgreen (Soudal-QuickStep), Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck) and the Ineos cohort of Tom Pidcock, Connor Swift, Luke Rowe and Ben Turner.
Although the group was unwieldy in size, the sheer firepower in display – not to mention the organising force of Visma-Lease A Bike – meant that there was little prospect of the Groupama-FDJ and Bahrain Victorious-led peloton reeling them back in, though the gap would oscillate between 30 and 60 seconds for the bones of the next fifty miles as the race tripped over the climbs of the Leberg, Hostellier and Valkenberg.
"It was not a really controlled race," Tratnik said of the chase effort. "One moment they were pulling and then they stopped and I thought the guys were tired. But in the end we caught them back and it was race on."
The finale had, in truth, already begun with 130km remaining, but what looked for the all the world like the winning move began to take shape in the final 50km when Jorgenson set a blistering pace over the Wolvenberg with an eye to burning off fast men like Philipsen and Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek).
The American’s efforts did that and more. Over the other side, only six riders remained with him – his teammates Van Aert and Laporte, Moscon, De Lie, Pidcock and Toms Skuijns (Lidl-Trek). Van Aert took over on the following cobbled section at Kerkgate, and his effort shook off Moscon.
Soudal-QuickStep's day to forget would be compounded in the finale, when both Asgreen and Julian Alaphilippe were fallers in the peloton.
With 46km remaining, there were now three Visma riders in a front group of six, with the chasers at 30 seconds and the main peloton irretrievably distanced at 55 seconds. Despite the obvious quality of Pidcock and De Lie, it was difficult to imagine a scenario that wouldn’t see a man in yellow and black winning in Meerbeke. The only question seemed to be which of their number would claim the spoils.
Even though Lidl-Trek and Ineos were now leading the chase behind, Skuijns and Pidcock continued to roll through at the front of the break, though the bulk of the driving was being performed by Visma, and they stretched their buffer out towards the one-minute mark on the approach to the Molenberg.
Laporte made a tentative effort on the climb, but he was tracked by Pidcock, and Van Aert deftly stitched the break back together over the other side as Visma maintained their numerical advantage.
By the Berendies, with 30km remaining, the sextet had 1:15 in hand on the chasers, and, surprisingly, it was Skuijns who seized the initiative by pushing clear on the climb. Van Aert initially followed but then sagely opted to wait for his two teammates while Pidcock was briefly distanced.
The break came back together again over the top, and there were no frissons on the following Elverenberg, though it clear that Visma-Lease A Bike would be eager to rid themselves of De Lie before the finish, given the ease with which the Belgian fast man had been pedalling to that point.
An attack from Laporte with 26km to go was quickly snuffed out, but when Jorgenson got more traction on his effort 5km later, the direction of travel seemed inevitable. Even so, the race followed an unexpected detour before arriving at the expected destination of a Visma-Lease A Bike victory.
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