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Alexys Brunel (TotalEnergies) pulled off a significant coup within the GP Jean-Pierre Monseré, attacking out of the day’s early breakaway and holding off the hard-charging peloton in Roeselare.
The 26-year-old powered by the ultimate 6.7km solo, driving a slight cross-tailwind to victory by 23 seconds on the peloton. Stian Fredheim (Uno-X Mobility) sprinted in for second place, simply forward of breakaway rider Michiel Coppens (Beat Cycling Club), whom they caught on the line.
The 201.6-kilometre flat one-day race in West Flanders befell beneath sunny skies and honest temperatures with eight WorldTour groups toeing the road in Itchtegem – notably XDS Astana, desperately searching for UCI factors, who despatched a crew to the 1.1-ranked race for the primary time.
Victor Vercouillie (Team Flanders-Baloise), Federico Biagini (VF Group-Bardiani CSF-Faizanè), Leo Doyle and Bogdan Zabelinskiy (Atom 6 Bikes-Decca Continental Team), Michiel Coppens (Beat Cycling Club) and Michiel van Vliet (Metec-SOLARWATT p/b Mantel) sparked the day’s transfer within the first kilometres. Not lengthy after, Brunel, additionally within the breakaway within the GP Criquielion on Saturday, joined them to make a seven-man escape group.
The breakaway opened up a niche of greater than three minutes earlier than the peloton needed to cease for a degree crossing, which gave the seven leaders just a few extra minutes. It wasn’t till the midway mark that the peloton introduced the breakaway again to their earlier hole of three minutes.
Their benefit stayed regular by to the ultimate hour, when the WorldTour groups got here ahead to chase for his or her sprinters. As the hole dipped beneath one minute, Doyle and Van Vliet misplaced contact with the escape group. A surge from Brunel spat Zabelinskiy out, too.
A crash within the peloton disrupted the chase with 20km to go, and Brunel, Coppens and Vercouille gained a little bit of time, heading into the ultimate lap with 1:15 on the time board. The hole was nonetheless a moderately wholesome minute when Brunel attacked with 6.7km to go and powered away from his former companions.
The chase behind started to get determined when Brunel had 50 seconds nonetheless with 4km to go, whereas Coppens and Vercouille weren’t giving up. Intermarché-Wanty led the pursuit as Brunel started to carve out extra time on his first two chasers, nonetheless holding 35 seconds with 2.5km to go.
It grew to become clear the bunch had severely underestimated the attackers when Brunel went into the ultimate 2km with a 25-second lead. They had the TotalEnergies rider in sight as he went beneath the crimson kite, however with a sequence of twists and turns, the peloton misplaced any probability of reeling Brunel in.
Coppens and Vercouille had been caught by the sprinters simply earlier than the road, with Coppens persevering with his effort to take third whereas Vercouille sat up and got here by in sixth place.
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