Edward Theuns (Lidl-Trek) scored a victory from the breakaway at the Bredene Koksijde Classic, winning in the finishing sprint as the move – which went clear 100km from the finish – just about held on to the line.
With the peloton finally closing in on the attackers in the closing metres of the race, Theuns launched a long sprint with Luke Lamperti (Soudal-QuickStep) and Nils Eekhoff (Picnic-PostNL) on his wheel.
He had enough to hold off his two competitors, who were also in the same long-range move, with Lamperti and Eekhoff filling out the remainder of the podium places.
“It’s unbelievable. I haven’t won since my son is born and he asks me a lot of times when I come back from the race ‘Daddy, did you win?’ and it hurts,” Theuns said after the race.
“I love to do the lead outs for Milan and that’s my place and he’s one of the best sprinters in the world, so it gives me a lot of satisfaction. But when your own son is saying ‘Why didn’t you win?’ it hurts a little bit.
“I told him last week it will come one day and today I had unbelievable legs, and I could win after a long time without a victory. It feels good. I really have to thank everybody who supported me, the whole team and especially my girlfriend and my son. They are the world to me, and they always support me. It’s not always easy to live together with a cyclist, but moments like these make it worth it.”
The flat start to the 201km race brought with it high winds, echelons after 25km, and an early end to the breakaway. The big attacks of the day would come on the ‘hill zone’ comprising of two ascents of the Baneberg and Kemmelberg and one of the Monteberg, however.
The five ascents came packed into a short circuit after 73km of racing and would bring attack after attack at the front of the race. Attacks from Erik Resell (Uno-X Mobility) and Jakob Söderqvist (Lidl-Trek) instigated the main move of the day heading towards the Baneberg.
More riders, including Vito Braet (Intermarché-Wanty), Ethan Vernon (Israel-Premier Tech) and Robbe Ghys (Alpecin-Deceuninck) went along, while behind them, a chase group including the podium trio, Alec Segaert (Lotto), Florian Vermeersch (UAE Team Emirates-XRG), and Aimé De Gendt (Cofidis) formed.
Upon finishing the second ascent of the Kemmelberg and exiting the ‘hill zone’, a minute separated the two groups, with the peloton trailing around 20 second back. That was at 100km to go, though it would take another 40km before the two break groups merged.
Back in the peloton, teams including Q36.5, Jayco-AlUla, and Arkéa-B&B Hotels worked at the front having missed the moves. The gap to the enlarged leading group of 15 men came down very gradually, however.
At 20km to go, the time gap was down to 35 seconds, but the riders out front kept on battling despite Uno-X and Tudor joining in the work behind. In the end, it would be the frontrunners who won out, with Söderqvist having put in a mountain of work on the front to help Theuns.
The catch was close to being made inside the final kilometre, and indeed, both peloton and break finished on the same time, but the breakaway riders won out as the fastmen prevailed.
Theuns proved the quickest in the dash to the line after a hectic day out by the North Sea coast. He held off Lamperti and Eekhoff in the sprint for his first UCI win since 2021, while Vernon and Braet rounded out the top five.
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