Team DSM fight at fastest edition of Ronde van Vlaanderen ever

Bone shaking cobbles combined with punchy climbs, the fourth Monument of the season lay in wait for the peloton as they rolled out of Brugge on Saturday morning for Ronde van Vlaanderen. With a strong tailwind at the beginning of the day, it was a rapid start to proceedings with the peloton constantly rolling attacks; and the team were well represented in each initial move. After more than 85 kilometres of hard fought racing, a breakaway eventually went clear with all of the Team DSM riders in the bunch.

Riding as a group, the team stayed well positioned towards the front although unfortunately Nils Eekhoff and Tim Naberman were involved in one of the many crashes throughout the day. The counter attacks started over once more with Alex Edmondson making it into a group. Yet, they were soon brought and the counter attack that would stick went clear.

Behind in the reduced peloton, Edmondson and Pavel Bittner helped look after John Degenkolb, bringing him towards the front ahead of the Oude Kwaremont at 60 kilometres remaining. Here the race in the peloton would explode with the strongest classic riders coming to the fore and powering on. Degenkolb would fight as hard as he could in one of the many chase groups over the remaining climbs and cobble sections, before producing a good sprint to come second, in what could be described as the peloton, for a 19th place overall.

Speaking after the race Degenkolb said: “We expected a hard race today but didn’t expect it to take so long until the group went clear. We tried hard to get into the break but it wasn’t our day for it, so we looked to our positioning going into the key moments of the race and tried to control the speed just the same as Trek-Segafredo did at the same point on Wednesday [at Dwars door Vlaanderen]. It was also a chance for us to try and save some energy for later and then also try to play our cards. When the counter attack went at the Molenberg I didn’t manage to jump into the group and didn’t have the legs to close it myself. It’s not a top result but I’m happy we could show ourselves as a team and ride well like we discussed before the start.”

Team DSM coach Phil West added: “We started the race with the goal of being solid as a unit and execute our plan, like we did at E3, and we wanted to make sure we did the same at Flanders. First we looked for a break and it was a really long fight for the break. In the end we didn’t make it in but the guys were really committed to hunting for it. Once that was done we reset and made sure we were in a good position for the first time up the Oude Kwaremont, which we did, and then went onto the next climbs. Then it was about the teamwork being on point and defending the position on the narrow climbs and coming over them in a good way so we could go for the fight on the next climb and so on. I think we’ve seen in recent races that it’s a tactic that a lot of teams have used, and it’s one you need to be confident to do. I think overall we are making steps in the right direction, and we’ll aim to take this good team spirit in the races to come and well into the future.”