'It was bizarre' - Chasers' gamble backfires as Van der Poel hangs on at E3 Saxo Classic

When Van der Poel first struck out on the Taaienberg with 70km still to race, the script looked written in advance. The Dutchman soon cruised across to two earlier groups of attackers, before zooming clear alone on the Paterberg with a shade over 42km to go. 

Game over? Not quite. 

After building a lead of a minute at one point, Van der Poel unexpectedly began to struggle in the final 20km. All of sudden, the chasers Stan Dewulf (Decathlon CMA CGM), Per Strand Hagenes (Visma | Lease a Bike), Florian Vermeersch (UAE Team Emirates) and Jonas Abrahamsen (Uno-X Mobility) were within touching distance.

The lead dropped to single digits in the closing kilometres, and by the time Van der Poel reached Harelbeke, it looked only a matter of time before he was caught by his pursuers. Beneath the flamme rouge, Van der Poel looked resigned to his fate, briefly sitting up in anticipation of the catch.

But the Dutchman remained lucid even at the point of greatest distress, and he spotted the strange hesitancy in the chasing group. After long turns on the run-in, Vermeersch and Hagenes looked to Abrahamsen to come through and make the final pull to close the gap.

Abrahamsen declined, Vermeersch gesticulated, and Van der Poel kicked again. The chance evaporated just as unexpectedly as it had appeared. Van der Poel held on to win by three seconds, while Hagenes outsprinted Vermeersch for second place. 

It was the best result of Hagenes’ young career, but it could have been more. In the mixed zone afterwards, however, the 22-year-old accepted the situation with calmness.

“Of course, you could play it a bit different in the final, but I chose to stay calm and risk it a little bit,” Hagenes said. “No one else closed the gap and it is what it is. Second place is still a good result. For me, it’s racing. That’s life. I think I can be proud of the way I raced.”

Outside the Visma bus, directeur sportif Arthur van Dongen backed his rider’s decision-making in the finale, reckoning that the impasse among the chasers was understandable in the context.

“In my opinion, Per made no mistake,” Van Dongen told Domestique. “There was a very good collaboration, and that was the reason they almost got Van der Poel back. Dewulf was already a long time in the break, so it was a turn for Abrahamsen. He decided not to pull anymore, and he’s free to do that, everyone has his own tactics. But in our opinion, Per made no mistakes.”

A little further along the street, Abrahamsen was warming down alone in a quiet spot behind the Uno-X bus, mulling over the opportunity that had escaped the chasers’ clutches. 

He had showcased his finishing speed on a tough day with his win in Toulouse on last year’s Tour de France, and that perhaps informed Vermeersch and Hagenes’ reluctance to allow him to sit on in the final kilometre.

“There was a small gap left in the final kilometre but sometimes you have to gamble also,” Abrahamsen said of the standoff. “And I think everyone was tired, so maybe it was because of that. I know I was a bit tired there in the end. I had to be a bit smart, but I also didn’t have the legs in the end.”

That ultimately showed in his fifth-place finish here, but while Abrahamsen was fading in the finale, Vermeersch was growing into the race after an untimely puncture had left him out of position when Van der Poel first went on the offensive on the Taaienberg. 

“It was the most terrible moment possible,” Vermeersch winced of his puncture, but he battled his way back into the race, leading the charge behind Van der Poel over the final ascents of the day and back to Harelbeke.

It would lead him to third place – his second podium finish of the Spring after Omloop Het Nieuwsblad – but Vermeersch knew it could have been more. Still, there was no recrimination in his voice as he made his way through the mixed zone.

“My companions decided to gamble and then I also decided that I was not going to be the one to close the last metres. It’s a pity in the end, but that’s cycling,” Vermeersch said, declining to criticise his companions in the chasing group. “It’s not that I’m angry, that’s cycling. I’m also disappointed but I understand there are tactical reasons. It’s life.”

Instead, his regrets circled around the puncture rather than the impasse. “I’m never going to say I would have been able to follow Mathieu and beat him, but I had to ride really defensively and always try to come back. Whereas I like to ride more aggressively…”

The most aggressive of the chasers had been Dewulf, given that he was part of the day’s early break and the last man to resist Van der Poel when he launched what – eventually – proved to be the winning attack on the Paterberg.

Dewulf certainly didn’t expect to see Van der Poel again before Harelbeke, and that might have been the problem for the chasers. After putting so much energy into the pursuit, none of them quite knew what to do when they eventually closed to within touching distance of their prey.

“It was really bizarre,” Dewulf told VTM. “For a moment, I didn’t even know what was happening myself… We came very close, but I was gambling that someone else would close the gap so that I could launch my own sprint. The strongest man won here, but there were opportunities….”

The terrible beauty of the Classics, of course, is that they don't come around often.