{"id":504881,"date":"2026-03-31T08:49:16","date_gmt":"2026-03-31T08:49:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/504881\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T08:49:16","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T08:49:16","slug":"no-tour-of-flanders-for-philipsen-as-alpecin-premier-techs-classics-planning-pays-off","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/504881\/","title":{"rendered":"No Tour of Flanders for Philipsen as Alpecin-Premier Tech\u2019s classics planning pays off"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jasper Philipsen<\/a> managed to add In Flanders Fields<\/a> to his own list of victories and that of his team, Alpecin-Premier Tech<\/a>, with a powerful sprint on Sunday. The Belgian sprinter achieved this following a strong race by the pacemaker, Mathieu van der Poel<\/a>, but also thanked his new lead-out man during the post-race press conference.<\/p>\n

At Alpecin-Premier Tech, the decision had already been made prior to the race to avoid a repeat of the situation from two years ago. Back then, Van der Poel didn\u2019t feel great as he rode alongside Mads Pedersen all the way to Wevelgem, only to be beaten by him in the sprint.<\/p>\n

Since Van der Poel\u2019s legs were still feeling the fatigue from the E3 on Sunday, the Dutchman decided to bet on Philipsen this time. The two communicated with each other via the earpiece: Van der Poel said he wasn\u2019t feeling his best, while Philipsen felt he still had some energy left.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt was a good situation, and for me it was fine either way, because of course I had Mathieu up front. Whatever happened, I knew I had to be ready for a potential sprint,\u201d said the eventual winner, who was brought back to the front by Decathlon and Red Bull.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou can plan all sorts of things, but in the end, you\u2019re still largely dependent on how the race unfolds. There were still a lot of sprinters and their teams, so there\u2019s always going to be some sort of chase,\u201d Philipsen noted.<\/p>\n

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

Philipsen opted for a different race strategy<\/p>\n

The Belgian chose a different approach to the classic Gent-Wevelgem than in previous years. \u201cIt\u2019s always been a race that should have suited me, but I also know that I didn\u2019t always have the best legs because I used up a lot of my energy during the race. This time I was calmer and conserved my energy. With Mathieu on the team, you have that option too.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course, it was no surprise that Mathieu was up front,\u201d Philipsen continued. \u201cBut it also depends on how the others are feeling. Mathieu wasn\u2019t feeling great after Friday, but he was still up front, so it wasn\u2019t that bad after all.\u201d<\/p>\n

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

Philipsen credits the \u2018new\u2019 lead-outAfter Van der Poel, Van Aert, and Vermeersch were reeled in, Philipsen tackled the final kilometer with two new faces<\/a> on the Alpecin-Premier Tech team. \u2018It wasn\u2019t easy to go into the final with Jonas Geens and Florian S\u00e9n\u00e9chal, both of whom are new to our team. It was a gamble, but you also have to give those guys the confidence that they can do it 100 percent.\u2019<\/p>\n

\u201cI know they have the strength, but everything still has to fall into place. And they did exactly what was expected of them, which makes winning all the sweeter,\u201d said Philipsen, who was very pleased with the work of the two.<\/p>\n

\u2018It takes time for the new guys to fully settle into the team. It\u2019s the little things: how you work as a team, communication, or simply moving through the peloton. You come into a new environment and you always have to adapt, but they\u2019re doing that very well.\u2019<\/p>\n

No Philipsen in Tour of Flanders<\/p>\n

Next up for Philipsen is Dwars door Vlaanderen, but he won\u2019t normally be there on Sunday for the Tour of Flanders. He\u2019s prioritizing the Scheldeprijs and Paris-Roubaix, which take place one day later. \u201cThe Tour of Flanders is a very tough race, and I only see two or three riders who can win it. Paris-Roubaix is a race where anything can happen, and we\u2019ll see if I can contend for the win there.\u201d<\/p>\n

Philipsen\u2019s decision not to ride the Tour of Flanders is one that aligns with the strategic choices Alpecin-Premier Tech makes in the spring. \u201cWe have a very good team for this kind of work, and that\u2019s what we\u2019re working on. We try to line up a balanced team at the start of every race,\u201d sports director Christoph Roodhooft<\/a> told us.<\/p>\n

Whereas many other teams consistently field the same riders, they chose, for example, to rest Edward Planckaert and Tibor Del Grosso\u2014who were riding so strongly in the E3\u2014for Dwars door Vlaanderen and replace them with… that\u2019s right, S\u00e9n\u00e9chal and Geens. With success.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jasper Philipsen managed to add In Flanders Fields to his own list of victories and that of his…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":504882,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[143965,110250,4985,120913,109589,176641,114474,99800,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-504881","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-alpecin-premier-tech","9":"tag-christoph-roodhooft","10":"tag-cycling","11":"tag-florian-senechal","12":"tag-idl-productions","13":"tag-in-flanders-fields","14":"tag-jasper-philipsen","15":"tag-mathieu-van-der-poel","16":"tag-sports","17":"tag-uk","18":"tag-united-kingdom","19":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504881","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=504881"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/504881\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/504882"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=504881"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=504881"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=504881"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}