Nils Politt began his first campaign with his new squad, UAE Team Emirates, metres away from the first Spring Classics win of his career, narrowly missing out on Jan Tratnik in the closing sprint at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad after the pair escaped inside the final 10km of the race.
Second place in Ninove marks the best Omloop result in nine starts and equals his second place at Paris-Roubaix, where he also missed out in the final sprint – then to Philippe Gilbert – back in 2019.
The German champion was positive about the result afterwards, even if he didn't quite manage to add to his career win tally of seven.
"It's the second time that I have finished like this," he said, referring to that Paris-Roubaix finish. "The Visma riders were very strong today – they made the race hard from the start.
"In the end, I knew that there were some fast finishers in the group behind us, so I'm happy that I could take second place for our team. Today I felt very good. It's nice to start the season like this at a big race. Now, I hope that I can continue like this in the coming weeks."
Both Politt and Tratnik made it back to the front of the race on the final climb of the 202km day, the Bosberg, after spending much of the race in a chase group behind a Visma-led lead split after the Dutch squad had broken the race apart in crosswinds before the midway mark.
UAE Team Emirates had made first contact with the move, around 115km later, as Tim Wellens led the charge up the Muur van Geraardsbergen just seconds behind the leaders, though the groups merged on the Bosberg a handful of kilometres later to set up the big finale.
"Our plan was for Wellens to try something on the Muur van Geraardsbergen," Politt said later. "He managed to bridge across to the leading group. I came from behind and saw Tratnik go. Visma had a lot of men in that group, so I knew I had to go with one of their attacks."
Visma-Lease a Bike, who had been in control for much of the race thanks to that move in the crosswinds, which eventually led to them enjoying three riders in a six-man group heading into the final 40km.
They'd attack with Matteo Jorgenson on the lead-in to the Muur, before Tratnik, Wout van Aert, and Christophe Laporte took turns going on the attack on the flat run from the Bosberg to the finish.
Eventually, with 8km to run, one of them stuck as Tratnik struck out with Politt, creating the move that would decide the day's winner.
But while Tratnik had the luxury of looking back to see several candidates for victory in a potential sprint – Van Aert sprinted to third place – Politt would have to work to keep the move going or risk going home with nothing for his team.
"We had to push it because behind [Lotto] were racing for Arnaud De Lie in the sprint," Politt said. "Tratnik was playing with me in the final. He said that he couldn't really continue to work and that I had to take over. I was already quite finished, but a second place was better than nothing, so I fell just short at the finish."
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