2023-09-24 14:49:00
The Varois won the elite men’s race of this Euro organized in the province of Drenthe ahead of Wout van Aert and the Dutchman Olav Kooij, his teammates in the Jumbo-Visma team who won a hat-trick at home, at the end of the 199.8 km of race between Assen and the Col du VAM. Arnaud De Lie finished 4th just off the podium, with Dutchman Mike Teunissen completing the top 5.
The big breakaway of the day was formed from the first kilometers, when the Briton Joshua Tarling, crowned European time trial champion on Wednesday, the Swiss Stefan Bissegger, the Irishman Rory Townsend and the Estonian Norman Vahtra, very quickly joined by the Czech Mathias Vacek, left the peloton 194 kilometers from the finish, taking a lead which was around a minute.
Behind, the Belgians and Danes were riding at the head of the peloton where several riders, such as the British Luke Rowe and Ethan Vernon, the Italian Filippo Ganna and the Dutchman Bauke Mollema were caught in a massive fall at 114 km. A fatal fall for Mollema, forced to abandon. Belgium, reduced to seven following the last minute withdrawal of Jasper De Buyst, who was ill, lost Tim Declercq 66 km from the goal. The peloton was then around fifty seconds behind the leading trio, Tarling and Vathra having been caught some 80 km from the line. Townsend dropped around fifty kilometers away, Bissegger and Vacek remained alone in the lead, while the Serbian Dusan Rajovic and the Slovenian Jaka Primozic set off in pursuit.
Finkst and Rajovic were caught 37 km from the line, Bissegger and Vacek 30 km away. Italy was then at the forefront and we found ourselves with a stretched peloton on the penultimate climb of the Col du VAM.
The decisive breakaway was formed 23 km from the finish under the leadership of Christophe Laporte, immediately followed by Olav Kooij. They were joined by Wout van Aert and Arnaud De Lie, the Danes Andreas Kron and Mads Pedersen, the German John Degenkolb, the Norwegian Rasmus Tiller, the French Sandy Dujardin and the Dutch Mike Teunissen to form a group of ten leading men who was not going to be taken back once more. Behind, victim of a second fall at 26 km, Ganna, who had given up the time trial to devote himself to the road race, saw his chances disappear.
The ten leading men had a 34-second lead with 15 km to go. Laporte tried his luck at 12.5 km and took advantage of the rivalries in the group of favorites to gain around ten seconds of gap. A lot of work from Arnaud De Lie allowed the pursuers to catch up with Laporte, who narrowly won ahead of Van Aert, once once more on the 2nd step of the podium following the Glasgow Worlds. De Lie finished just off the podium in his first major championship.
The first French European champion, Christophe Laporte, 30 years old and 31 victories under his belt, succeeds the Dutchman Fabio Jakobsen on the Euro list, open to elites since 2016.
Wout van Aert offered Belgium a 5th medal in the men’s elite road race, following silver for Yves Lampaert (2019) and Remco Evenepoel (2021) and bronze for Van Aert (2018) and that of Tim Merlier ( 2022).
The Belgians were more celebrating in the Euro time trial, with the gold medals of Victor Campenaerts (2017 and 2018) and Remco Evenepoel (2019), to which were added the medal of silver from Campenaerts (2016) and bronze medals from Campenaerts (2020), Evenepoel (2021) and Wout van Aert this week.
Belgium completes this Euro 2023 with six medals, with the titles of Alec Segaert in the junior time trial and Fleur Moors among the juniors, as well as the bronze medals of Wout van Aert among the elites and Senne Sentjens among the juniors in the chrono and Lotte Kopecky in the elite women’s road race.
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