{"id":485472,"date":"2026-02-17T09:42:08","date_gmt":"2026-02-17T09:42:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/485472\/"},"modified":"2026-02-17T09:42:08","modified_gmt":"2026-02-17T09:42:08","slug":"wellens-uses-experience-to-seal-victory-while-pidcock-lacks-it-i-made-a-mistake","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/485472\/","title":{"rendered":"Wellens uses experience to seal victory, while Pidcock lacks it: \u201cI made a mistake\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"

The first real warning shot ahead of Strade Bianche has been fired. UAE Team Emirates\u2013XRG were able to dominate Cl\u00e1sica Ja\u00e9n, with Tim Wellens<\/a> ultimately taking the win. The Belgian champion crowned a long solo<\/a> with his first victory of the season, but it was anything but straightforward on the rough Spanish gravel roads. Tom Pidcock<\/a> also had a very hard day out.With Jan Christen (3rd), Beno\u00eet Cosnefroy (4th) and Igor Arrieta (8th), UAE still placed three more riders in the top ten. The Swiss rider Christen was later disqualified <\/a>after an irregular sprint, but it did nothing to diminish the strength of the team performance. \u201cThe tactic was clear: we came here with a very strong team,\u201d Wellens said in the flash interview<\/a>. \u201cWe had to use that, and we always wanted someone up the road so the teammates behind could stay calm.\u201d<\/p>\n

Wellens went clear early and found himself alone with Mark Donovan (Pinarello\u2013Q36.5 Pro Cycling). With 55 kilometres to go, the Belgian rode away on his own. \u201cI went quite early, but I had good legs. I had to go pretty deep to drop Mr Donovan, but in the end I could hold my tempo. They came pretty close, but I could keep the watts and I had a good feeling,\u201d he explained.<\/p>\n

Donovan seemed to put Wellens under pressure, but the experienced all-rounder refused to panic as the Brit eventually imploded and played no further role in the fight for the win. \u201cI knew it was still far from the finish, so I couldn\u2019t go full gas. I was happy he attacked, because he suffered from it.\u201d<\/p>\n

It very nearly went wrong for Wellens, who somehow managed to avoid crashing. \u201cIn my head I\u2019d already activated my muscles to anticipate the crash, because I really thought I was going down. I was very lucky I could stay upright, because I truly thought I was going to hit the deck.\u201d<\/p>\n

Read on below the video!<\/p>\n

Pidcock tactically outplayed early and left with no chance of victory<\/p>\n

Tom Pidcock rode a strong race and finished second, but for much of the day he was effectively chasing from behind. \u201cIt went wrong when I missed the move at the start. Honestly, I thought my race was over. But Soudal Quick-Step made the gap small enough that I could jump back across. We were back in the race, but Tim had already gone. My team was super strong today, but Tim was stronger.\u201d<\/p>\n

Despite missing out on the win, the British star believes he can look ahead with confidence to the truly important races. \u201cIt\u2019s not bad. I made a mistake, but my team was strong and I\u2019m happy about that. I felt OK, but the days in Murcia weren\u2019t ideal with the stage being cancelled and all the travelling. It\u2019s nice to have a good race in the legs ahead of Ruta del Sol.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The first real warning shot ahead of Strade Bianche has been fired. UAE Team Emirates\u2013XRG were able to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":485473,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[569],"tags":[64,63,245767,784,245768,85,164013,63570,19805],"class_list":{"0":"post-485472","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-au","9":"tag-australia","10":"tag-clasica-jaen-paraiso","11":"tag-cycling","12":"tag-pinarello-q36-5-pro-cycling","13":"tag-sports","14":"tag-tim-wellens","15":"tag-tom-pidcock","16":"tag-uae-team-emirates-xrg"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485472","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=485472"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/485472\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/485473"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=485472"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=485472"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=485472"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}