When Neilson Powless (EF Education-EasyPost) joined the WorldTour eight years ago, he thought he would be a GC rider. Then with a strong fourth-place performance on the cobbled stage 5 of the 2022 Tour de France, he went confidently into Dwars door Vlaanderen the next year and finished third. The US rider said that changed his whole perspective of the cobbled one-day races.
On his return to the cobbles and climbs at Dwars door Vlaanderen on Wednesday, Powless proved he was indeed a one-day racer. He not only hung in the small army of three Visma-Lease a Bike riders for more than 50 kilometres at the front of the race but then out-sprinted Wout van Aert for the victory.
"I think I still need to see that finish video because it feels like a dream. I really can't believe it still. Yeah, I was on that top step of the podium, so it must be real," Powless said at the post-race press conference, relishing the victory.
"I knew I could finish second, but the wind felt too ambitious and I just tried to make sure I didn't get boxed in. I knew if I didn't get boxed in, I'd definitely finish second. But I just had something special.
"I think this is probably the most impressive victory for myself, like the most satisfying victory, mostly because I fully did not believe I was going for the win until 100 meters from the line. So that's a pretty unique feeling."
A small breakaway and a sprint for the win was not entirely new territory for the US rider. He earned his first one-day race victory for EF Education in 2021 in a thrilling finale at Clásica San Sebastián, that instance holding off breakaway companions Matej Mohoric (Bahrain-Victorious) and Mikkel Honoré (Deceuninck-QuickStep).
"I've had that confidence boost ever since I had won San Sebastián. I must say that the winning sense at San Sebastián felt a lot more opportunistic than it did from today," Powless recalled.
"So today felt a little bit more special. I'm not trying to say that one race was really bigger than the other. They're both WorldTour races and very high level races, but today felt more satisfying to me."
It was at his third Tour de France appearance the year after San Sebastián that Powless changed his mindset about what kind of rider he would become. A stage on cobbles took the fear away and gave him renewed confidence about his abilities.
"When I first became a pro cyclist, I thought I was going to be a GC rider because I could TT kind of quite well. I mean, I was sort of all-arounder. Most teams would say, if you're pretty light and you're all-arounder, you should try to be a GC rider.
After the cobbled stage at the Tour de France in 2021, that really opened my eyes to how comfortable I actually was on the cobbles, and it made me really not afraid of them anymore."
A sweet victory
Wednesday he took the opportunity to wipe away any doubt about his abilities on the cobbles and one-day races.
More than 125km had been covered in the 184.2km race when the 'super team' Visma-Lease a Bike launched a four-rider acceleration from the peloton on the second approach to the Knokteberg climb - Van Aert, Tiesj Benoot, Matteo Jorgenson and Edoardo Affini in pursuit of a breakaway of eight riders, which included Powless. Once across the climb, Powless powered on with Van Aert, Benoot and Jorgenson, and he said he had constant communications with his team director in the car about whether he should work with the group or not.
"Tiesj was probably the most vocal, and Matteo as well, about how good the group was, and we should ride and just keep a steady pace. They also knew I could probably beat two of them in a sprint. So, I mean, they weren't lying when they said it was a good group.
"It's also really intimidating to be in a group of four, and there's three on the same team, so I was quite nervous. But it played to my advantage that the gap was never more than a minute, so we had to keep the pace high. Because of that, there was not a whole lot of playing around."
With a strong headwind and a high pace, Powless said he tried to keep his time at the front of the charge to a minimum once the decision was made to keep going.
"Yeah, every time I hit the front, I was just couldn't wait to get off because every time I was on the front I was in a lot of pain. The pace was really high, even if the speed was low," he recalled.
"The wind was really intense today, that made it really difficult. Every time we had a tailwind, it felt really nice to be up the road knowing you're going 50, 60k per hour, because that means you're getting that much closer to the finish line.
"I felt really solid on the sprint and the whole way to the finish line, I never felt like I was dying. And yeah, I haven't been in a situation where I need to do a sprint like that at the end of the race."
This is only the second race win for EF Education-EasyPost this season, Marijn van den Berg earning a win in February at Trofeo Ses Salines. Ben Healy came close at Strade Bianche with fourth, and Madis Mihkels added a podium at Classic Brugge-De Panne.
"Yeah, the team hasn't had a lot of victories this year. When I crossed that finish line, it just felt like a ton of weight was lifted off my chest, and I was able to give back something to the organization and all the staff, that drive sometimes 15 hours straight to get to one race," Powless said about a rewarding day.
"There are those super teams [in the race], but when you win today, it just makes it feel that much sweeter when it's been a while since the last one."
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