‘It went a little too fast’: Van der Poel explains unplanned attack before Luxembourg sprint victory

Racing on the road for the first time since the Champs Élysées, Van der Poel made his move on the Côte de Stafelter inside the final 10 kilometres. The intention, he explained, had been to make the climb hard enough to put the faster riders under pressure.

Instead, he suddenly found himself off the front.

“We wanted to make the climb a bit faster to eliminate the sprinters, but I think it went a little too fast and I was alone there,” Van der Poel said after the finish.

The Alpecin-Premier Tech leader quickly realised that committing fully to the attack was unlikely to pay off. With a descent still to come before the final push into Luxembourg City, he knew the chasing group would have a significant advantage.

“I knew that with the descent towards the finish it was going to be very difficult to make it alone,” he said. “So I tried to recover a little.”

That decision proved crucial.

Van der Poel was brought back around four kilometres from the line, but still had enough left when his former teammate Søren Kragh Andersen (Lidl-Trek) launched his move on the steep final drag to the finish.

“When Andersen went from very far out, that really hurt,” Van der Poel said. “But in the end I just managed to pass him before the finish.”

It was a finale Van der Poel knew well. Having raced on the same roads two years ago, he was aware of just how much the closing metres could take out of the legs.

Asked what was going through his mind when he had to produce another effort after already spending energy on the attack, Van der Poel pointed as much to the mental battle as the physical one.

“It was mainly in the head, but my legs were hurting a lot as well,” he said. “I knew the finish from two years ago and I knew it was a very hard finish. I just managed to find enough strength to get to the line.”

The victory also puts Van der Poel into the leader’s jersey and gives him more than stage wins to think about over the coming days.

Rather than choosing between hunting further victories and protecting his place at the top of the general classification, Van der Poel made clear that he intends to pursue both.

“We will try again this year to win stages and also the general classification, if possible,” he said.