Kilojoules Magazine

Wout van Aert, Matteo Jorgensen, and Neilson Powless await the podium ceremony after the 79th Dwars door Vlaanderen.

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Dwars door Vlaanderen delivers an unlikely victory for the outnumbered Neilson Powless, and more disappointment for Wout van Aert. Did Visma Lease-A-Bike get their tactics wrong? When will luck start favoring the Belgian superstar? We recap here.

Dwars door Vlaanderen was punctuated by aggressive racing this year, with riders and teams eager to test the legs ahead of the Ronde van Vlaanderen on Sunday. The early stages saw an overzealous Mads Pederson of Lidl-Trek setting a ferocious pace repeatedly on key sectors. However, with 70km’s to go, Visma upped the pace, creating a gap to their last man and bridging up to the breakaway of 4 riders including Neilson Powless of EF-Education-EasyPost and Tim Wellens of UAE Team Emirates-XRG. The Visma train rolled attacks, whittling the group down to three of their own, Tiesj Benoot, Matteo Jorgensen and Wout van Aert, along with Powless, the group that stayed away to the finish.

What happened next left many in shock. Visma was preparing for a sprint, a sensical move as Van Aert is regarded among the best sprinters in the pro peloton. The stage was set for a 1v1 sprint against Van Aert, a pure sprinter when he needs to be, and Neilson Powless, a rider who has worn the KOM jersey in the Tour de France. On paper, a flat sprint between these two riders would not even consider Powless to have a chance, especially with Van Aert having Jorgensen and Benoot, who are both capable of winning themselves, providing a full lead out for the Belgian. Van Aert launched his sprint with 200m to go, but quickly faded as Powless came around him for the win.

Van Aert provided comment on his performance after the race:

“Yeah, I’m extremely disappointed. I feel responsible for this result and responsible for not finishing off the work of the team…I wanted this victory really bad and it was me making this decision quite early on that I wanted to sprint and have TJ and Matteo just control the break and bring me to the line with Neilson…I was just too selfish, I was afraid that I would come in a situation where I was not able to go for first place and that’s a big mistake. We should have played it as a team…”

Wout’s teammate, Matteo Jorgensen also gave comment after finishing 4th due to his contribution to the lead-out:

“We did a beautiful race up until 10km to go when we decided to go for the sprint with Wout. It was the wrong decision, we can be honest about that. We also underestimated Neilson so shout out to Neilson and congrats, that was a great sprint from him.”

Visma and Van Aert faced immediate tactical criticism following the race. To lose a race with 3 against 1 as a team is not the greatest look for the Dutch superteam, but they can hardly be blamed for favoring their proven sprinter over a proven climber. Van Aert explained his lackluster sprint, saying he cramped fully as soon as he launched.

Regardless of the result, Van Aert and the team showed impressive form, and Van Aert especially can be pleased with an improvement from his E3 Saxo Classic result last week. If the trend continues, he should be even better for the Ronde van Vlaanderen, with perhaps some extra motivation to prove he is still one of the best and silence the Flemish criticism. Where will Visma Lease-A-Bike go with their tactics? Will they decide a true leader? We will find out on the holy Sunday.