Gent-Wevelgem still calls Tim Merlier and Frank Vandenbroucke is part of why

Tim Merlier won 16 times last season, yet the finish he keeps returning to is the long straight of the Vanackerestraat in Gent-Wevelgem. He sprinted to second place behind an untouchable Mads Pedersen and he walked away feeling oddly complete.

“It was as if I had won that race,” Merlier told Sporza. The emotion, he explained, was about more than a podium photo. Gent-Wevelgem has long been tied to the memory of 1998 winner Frank Vandenbroucke, and Merlier is the partner of Cameron Vandenbroucke. When he talks about the race, it is not the usual sprinter’s checklist. It is a bond.

The backdrop to that second place makes the feeling even stranger. A few days before, Merlier crashed hard in Classic Brugge De Panne and needed stitches below his knee. “I wanted to skip Wevelgem, but sports director Iljo Keisse kept pushing me to try,” Merlier said. “Looking back, I’m really happy I did.”

Merlier arrived at Gent-Wevelgem far from perfect. “I wasn’t in the race, but I kept biting down and I managed to take the sprint for second. That place felt like a victory.”

Merlier bristles slightly when Gent-Wevelgem is described as a sprinters’ Classic. “It’s an underestimated race. A lot of riders think it’s for sprinters, but the race opens up early and it never settles. You have to keep believing and hope for a sprint.”

Hope, though, is not a strategy. When asked what it would take to finally win the classic, now branded In Flanders Fields from Middelkerke to Wevelgem, Merlier did not pretend there is a clean formula. 

“Everything,” he said. “Everything does not have to fall into place 100 percent, but 1,000 percent.

“I need a sprint from a small group and miracle legs. And then I still need to be in the right position. And up there they have to decide I’m allowed to win.”

At 33, Merlier remains one of the quickest finishers in the world, but he is careful about how far he bends his training toward the Classics. 

“I hope I can still get better as a sprinter. I work for that every year. I’m not taking big steps anymore, but there are still baby steps in it,” he said. “These days a sprinter has to get over a hill, but I still believe I want to stay a pure sprinter.

 “I switched to the road late and I don’t want to take risks with training to handle a race like Milan San Remo. With the current peloton that’s impossible.”

The ambition, then, is balance: keep winning sprints, keep nudging the engine, and keep chasing the classic that keeps pulling him back. “The races I can win, I’ve won,” he said. “Sometimes you have to pause more and allow yourself to enjoy what you’re doing.”