Philippe Gilbert said he wanted to do something special to celebrate his Ronde van Vlaanderen victory as he walked across the finish line holding his bike above his head.
The 34-year-old Belgian champion had come to the end of a daring 55km-long solo breakaway to win the prestigious 261km “Monument” one-day cobbled classic.
Looking back over his shoulder he could see a group of three chasers a few hundred meters behind.
Photo: EPA
With victory assured, he stopped just before the line, climbed off his bicycle, hoisted it high in the air and walked across the line with a beaming smile.
“Until two kilometers to go I wasn’t really sure I could resist the guys behind because they were coming a little back,” the Quick-Step Floors rider said. “I was really focusing on my effort until almost the last kilometer. Then in the long straight I could see the finish line at the end. I was looking back and I saw I still had a gap, so I thought: ‘I will do something special.’ I thought this will be a nice picture with the bike in the air and the jersey stretched — something special.”
Gilbert had broken clear on the Oude-Kwaremont climb with about 55km to ride and initially he admitted he was not sure what to do as his team had not planned for him to pull clear so far from home.
First, Gilbert’s Quick-Step teammate Tom Boonen accelerated and then when he put in a dig, he quickly found himself with daylight behind his rear wheel.
“Tom went full gas and really did a big pull. He did the first part and then I was taking over, shifting to a big gear when it was flatter,” Gilbert said. “Then there was a little chicane in the village, I was looking back and saw I had a gap. I didn’t know what to do. I saw they were pretty far back, so I was asking [my team] what to do and they said: ‘Just go.’”
Behind Gilbert the chase was on with Olympic champion Greg van Avermaet of BMC Racing Team and world champion Peter Sagan of Bora-Hansgrohe on the charge, alongside Oliver Naesen of AG2R La Mondiale.
They had about a minute to make up with 17km left and were looking strong until Sagan caught a jacket draped over the barriers and caused all three to crash.
Van Avermaet managed to get up and still finish second, 29 seconds behind Gilbert, but Sagan’s race was ruined.
“I thought we would catch him, but destiny didn’t want that,” said Slovak Sagan, the winner last year.
“Whether it was my fault, I don’t know. I didn’t clip the barriers, if I had I would have gone down immediately,” he said. “Something pulled my bike back and then the others crashed into the back of me.”
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