{"id":503387,"date":"2026-03-30T12:11:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T12:11:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/503387\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T12:11:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T12:11:10","slug":"jordi-meeus-confronts-christophe-laporte-after-red-bull-bora-hansgrohes-in-flanders-fields-plan-unravels","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/503387\/","title":{"rendered":"Jordi Meeus confronts Christophe Laporte after Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe\u2019s In Flanders Fields plan unravels"},"content":{"rendered":"

The fact that Mathieu van der Poel and Wout van Aert were caught in the closing phase of In Flanders Fields<\/a> on Sunday was largely down to the efforts of Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe. The German team had chosen to back Jordi Meeus<\/a>, but in the streets of Wevelgem the Belgian never even got the chance to launch his sprint. <\/p>\n

At the finish, IDL was able to catch up with Mick van Dijke<\/a>, who explained the team\u2019s intended plan. \u201cThe idea was to sprint with Jordi, so for us it was mainly about following the moves and not contributing to the chase ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBasically, everyone had to stay in their box, although Tim was allowed to go if the really big names moved,\u201d Van Dijke continued. \u201cIt was a very hard day anyway, especially with the echelons early on. After De Moeren, I already had to do a big turn on the front.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI felt super good, but we had our tactics,\u201d Van Dijke said. \u201cHeading into the second time up the Kemmelberg, I had to position the guys, and then you know you\u2019re not going to make it over with them anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n

After that, it was up to brother Tim, Gianni Vermeersch and Laurence Pithie to help close the gap to Van der Poel and Van Aert, alongside the riders from Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale. While the French team were rewarded with second place for Tobias Lund Andresen, Meeus had to settle for 36th. The late race itself ended with Jasper Philipsen taking victory after Van der Poel and Van Aert were reeled in just before the line.<\/p>\n

Continue reading below the photo. <\/p>\n

\"tim-van-dijke\"\/<\/p>\n

Tim van Dijke and Gianni Vermeersch rode in the lead for a long time.<\/p>\n

Meeus goes to Laporte for answers\u201cI heard over the radio that Jordi hadn\u2019t been able to sprint, so that was really frustrating,\u201d Van Dijke said at the finish. Meeus was pushed toward the barriers in a movement in the bunch and crossed the line slamming his hands on the bars, after which he made his way over to Christophe Laporte<\/a> to ask what had happened.<\/p>\n

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

The Frenchman from Visma | Lease a Bike had made contact with Meeus, whose chain then came off, but Laporte did not appear to believe there had been any intent. \u201cRace incident,\u201d was effectively his explanation to his rival. \u201cI didn\u2019t expect we would come back, but Decathlon and BORA closed it with six riders, so in the end it still became a sprint,\u201d he said afterwards via CyclingProNet<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The fact that Mathieu van der Poel and Wout van Aert were caught in the closing phase of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":503388,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[158935,4985,109589,176641,113428,130150,20997,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-503387","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-christophe-laporte","9":"tag-cycling","10":"tag-idl-productions","11":"tag-in-flanders-fields","12":"tag-jordi-meeus","13":"tag-mick-van-dijke","14":"tag-red-bull-bora-hansgrohe","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom","18":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503387","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=503387"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/503387\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/503388"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=503387"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=503387"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=503387"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}