Milan admits he was unsure after dramatic Renewi Tour photo finish

Jonathan Milan (Lidl-Trek) admitted he was unsure he had won until the final moments after edging Olav Kooij (Decathlon CMA CGM) in a photo finish on stage 1 of the Renewi Tour in Diest.

The Italian champion had launched his sprint with around 200m remaining after the peloton caught the day’s breakaway inside the flamme rouge. He narrowly held off a charging Kooij to take his twelfth victory of the season. 

“I was not sure about the sprint until the last second,” Milan said post-race. “I started like 200m to go, and then I was there; it was like ‘okay, let’s try to hold it.’ But yeah, Kooij was coming up super fast.”

The victory came at the end of the stage completed in rainy conditions, with a strong five-man breakaway pushing the peloton all the way. A late attack from Florian Vermeersch on the Grasbos climb with 11km remaining also threatened to derail the cohesion of the sprinters' chase of the breakaway.

Milan praised his teammates for their work throughout the difficult day and their ability to rescramble control of the chase.

“It was not easy to stay together, to keep focusing all day, to keep fighting, but yeah, we made it, and I’m really happy how we have started here.”

With Tim Merlier (Soudal Quick-Step) taking third on the day and Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Premier Tech) fourth, Milan outpowered some of the world’s premier sprinters, adding to the prestige of the victory.

“They are super strong riders. I really like to compete against them; they always bring out the best of me,” Milan said. “Also today you saw it was really close with Olav [Kooij]. He’s a super strong rider.”

Milan will now change the Italian tricolour for the blue jersey as he now leads the GC by four seconds over Kooij, and Dries De Bondt (Jayco AlUla) who picked up bonus seconds at the Green KM from the breakaway.