Neilson Powless (EF Education-Easypost) broke Wout Van Aert and Visma-Lease Dreaming of a team of a team victory at Dwars Door Vlaanderen, defeating Van Aert, Tiesj Benoot and Matteo Jorgenson in a four-cycling sprint.
The quartet escaped with 55 km to run, with Visma-Lail a bicycle apparently guaranteed to repeat the historic scales of the team podium like Mapei and Quickstep in Paris-Roubaix. Instead, Powless was like Ian Stannard when he defeated a trio of Quickstep runners to win the 2015 omloop Het Nieuwsblad.
Van Aert could only drop his head on defeat when he saw Victory escape from him and his team, with Benoot Third and Jorgenson Fourth. Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) won the sprint for fifth place at 45 seconds, after trying without success to drive out the attack.
“I really can’t believe it,” said Powless with disbelief after having shouted and embraced his teammates and the staff on the finish line.
“I felt really strong today but I didn’t think I had the chance to win from this group. I thought I was driving for second place. I can’t believe it, I’m so happy.
“It has been a difficult source for me so far, but today I’m so happy to be back where I know I can be.”
Powless won the Clasica San Sebastian and other day races, but it was special and gives him huge confidence for the Flanders tour.
“It is the biggest victory in my life,” he said.
“I hope to be able to fight for the victory (Sunday), at least fight for the podium. In these races, you need a little luck, but you also need confidence, so I certainly won one today.”
Powless chose to climb with Van Aert, Benoot and Jorgenson in the attack, knowing that he always had a chance in the sprint.
“It was a constant interior struggle, even for my car director, he went back and forth on the fact that I had to ride or not because we had a lot of figures behind,” said Powless.
“I felt really good. I really felt solid on the cobblestones, so I didn’t want to sprint from a larger group. It was a rock and a hard place but I am proud of the way I went up.”
Powless rose on an intelligent sprint.
“I thought what was going to be the strongest of the sprint, they really parked on him, but I never thought that in a million years I would beat him in a sprint, in a race like this,” he said.
“I arrived with a little more speed in the last corner and I had three or four kilometers an hour faster than Wout when it started this sprint. I just went to the line and I was able to wear the speed fairly well. There is not much space between this last corner and the finish line, so I just had to start my sprints immediately and pray.”
How it went
Dwars Door Vlaanderen was run at a record speed of 46.587 km / h due to strong cross and winds of tail and a light blue sky.
Strangely, no break escaped for the first 60 km, but the race quickly exploded.
Taco van der Hoorn (Intermarché-Wanty), Joshua Giddings (Lotto), Lewis Askey (Groupama-FDJ), Mikkel Bjerg (Emirates-XRG water team), Fabio Christen (Q36.5 Pro Cycling Team), Rasmus Pedersen (Decathlon Ag2r La Mondiale), Cériel Desal) (Wagner Bazin) and Petre Kelemen (Tudor Pro Cycling) finally opened a gap but never won more than a minute.
On the climb of Knokteberg, with 91 km to run, Van Aert explained his intentions and quickly trembled the peloton, creating a hunting group before.
Pedersen also tried to be aggressive but was held in check. Then a counterattack came from Powless, Josh Tarling (Grenadier ineos) and Fabio Vandenbossche (Alpecin-Deceuninck) fled while the runners tried to anticipate any major selection.
The three joined the Danish duo Pedersen and Bjerg in advance, but another major change arrived. As the Berg Ten Houte climb approaching 56 km to run, Van Aert, Benoot, Jorgenson, as well as Edoardo Affini and Dylan Van Baarle struck the forehead and wrapped the Peloton in the back wind in perfect Flemish race.
Van Aert, Benoot, Jorgenson and Affini then propelled themselves, the Italian making a huge lap until he is far from the second climb of the Knokteberg. They caught the attackers but only Powless could stay with them.
The peloton refused to give up for a long time, with Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek), Magnus Sheffield (ineos grenadiers), Stefan Küng (Groupama-FDJ) and others leading the prosecution and trying to convince others to help them.
For 20 km, the time difference remained less than 30 seconds. Then the Chase lost the conviction and the trio Visma and Powless gained confidence.
An accident saw Nils Polit (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) descend hard before the flat paving roads make a spectacular final and little doubt that Visma-lease a bicycle would win the victory.
Powless tried to miss a few turns, but Benoot forced him to help by leaving him from the back of the attack with 25 km. The American knew it was better for him to collaborate, then to try his chances, even in three to one.
Visma decided to stay together and get on arrival to install Van Aert instead of attacking Powless, but it turned out to be their loss.
Powless was strong and to win. He managed to sit on the Van Aert wheel in the last quick scanning turn and had more speed in the acceleration of the line.
According to what seemed to be a safe defeat, Powless has torn off the most important and dramatic victory of his career. For Van Aert and Visma-Lisa a bicycle, it was one of their biggest defeats.
Results
Results fed by Firstcycling.com
