As the boys’s Omloop Het Nieuwsblad used to be heading into the general, the ladies’s version used to be nonetheless within the early section of the race. However this became out to be a decisive section because the early breakaway stored including to its merit. Within the peloton, not one of the giant groups took accountability to keep an eye on the space and produce again the attackers, as a substitute taking a look to their competitors to begin the chase first in a recreation of ‘who blinks first’ till, sooner or later, it used to be too little, too overdue.
The skilled 38-year-old Ellen van Dijk (Lidl-Trek) realised all over the race that the space had develop into too giant, however didn’t see her crew as being the only liable for chasing.
“I think it’s the new dynamic in the peloton with riders in different teams, and then they start looking at each other. It was kind of the first race where they say, like, ‘it’s up to you’, ‘no, it’s up to you’, and then nobody is doing it, and somebody else is going to win,” the Dutchwoman stated.
Pfeiffer Georgi (Group Picnic PostNL) had identical emotions.
“We heard 10-12 minutes, and our feeling was like ‘okay, that’s pretty big’, but we thought it wasn’t up to us to chase, we don’t have a favourite. I think it was down to FDJ and SD Worx to start but I think everyone was kind of waiting,” the British champion stated.
Puck Pieterse and her Fenix-Deceuninck additionally regarded to FDJ-Suez and SD Worx to turn their playing cards. The 22-year-old used to be the one one that may stay alongside of Demi Vollering (FDJ-Suez) when the latter made her transfer at the Muur however needed to stay her personal powder dry.
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“It was super frustrating for me personally as I like to race in the front. But it’s not my job to start pulling because I have to survive the Muur as well. We were looking to SD Worx and especially to FDJ to start pulling, and then we would put somebody in as well. In the final, before the Muur, we put some of our riders in together with FDJ, but that was already too late,” Pieterse said after her fourth-place finish.
Vollering, racing the first Classic with her new team FDJ-Suez, had talked to her former teammates during the race but received a clear answer.
“I went to the SD Worx riders and asked, ‘don’t you want to chase’, and they said, ‘no, we’re not allowed to chase by the car’. I had the impression that the girls didn’t like it either, but that’s how it is,” recounted the 28-year-old.
“I think that at the beginning of the season, everybody is a bit too afraid to put their hands in the fire too early, they are afraid that they will have to ride first every time for the rest of the season. Then it becomes a gamble, and whoever is the best at bluffing wins … or not. Today, none of us won,” Vollering continued.
Lorena Wiebes (SD Worx-Protime) defended her team’s decision to call their rivals’ bluff.
“We didn’t have a rider to come over the Muur in the first group, so we thought it was a bit more up to the other teams. Everybody was waiting, and we were not the first ones to start a chase. At one point Puck came to us, like, ‘if you start to chase, we start to chase’. But it was really looking at each other at that point,” Wiebes said.
“I was feeling quite okay, but I wasn’t 100 percent sure to get over the Muur in the first group. And in the end, Puck and Demi stayed in front. So even if we had caught the front group, we would have been sprinting for third place, and that’s also not what we come for. It would have been different if we had Lotte today, for instance, because then you know that she can follow Demi,” explained Wiebes.
Asked if she had experienced anything like this before, Van Dijk drew parallels to the 2021 Olympic Games road race.
“I wasn’t there, but I think the Tokyo Olympics was very similar,” she said.
Georgi could see the positives in how the race played out, giving escapees more hope that they can make it.
“Sometimes cycling is unpredictable. And I think it shows that if you take your chances, it can pay off and you can win,” stated Georgi.
