On Tuesday, Pim Ligthart finished second in the Mémorial Frank Vandenbrouck in Binche. His fellow countryman Ramon Sinkeldam (Giant-Alpecin) won the cobbled uphill sprint. Tom Van Asbroeck (LottoNL-Jumbo) became third. Stig Broeckx finished fifth.
Fierce rain showers and a strong headwind made the race hard. Because of that, a breakaway of fifteen riders, including Boris Vallée, went in the first kilometres. Shortly after this, a counterattack broke away from the peloton. The first part of the group, including Jürgen Roelandts, Stig Broeckx and Pim Ligthart, could bridge to the leaders. The second part of the peloton had to let go and never saw the front of the race again.
In the final, Niki Terpstra (Etixx-Quickstep) tried a solo attack but he was caught with eight kilometres to go. In the chasing group, Jürgen Roelandts and Pim Ligthart took off with five other riders. At three kilometres from the finish, Roelandts tried to go solo but also this attack was neutralised with only one kilometre to go.
In the uphill sprint, Ramon Sinkeldam (Giant-Alpecin) won in front of Pim Ligthart and Tom Van Asbroeck (LottoNL-Jumbo). Stig Broeckx finished fifth. Also Jürgen Roelandts and Boris Vallée finished the race in the thinned-out peloton.
"There is a bit of disappointment, since we were on track but wer caught with 3 kilometers to go Then I made the effort in the final to finish second," Ligthart told Cyclismactu. "If it hadn't been for Terpstra, I'm sure that we would have stayed away but it was hard for us to go all in as we had Terpstra's teammate Maes with us. But we still had a good race with Roelandts.
"The Giant-Alpecin team played it well. They did not join the break, and they only had to make the effort in the end. "
“Off course we wanted to win, but the team did what they could," sports director Mario Aerts said. Unfortunately, luck wasn’t on our side today. In every attack there was a Lotto Soudal rider so we never faced a dangerous situation. Our leader, Jürgen Roelandts, got caught in the final kilometre after he rode a strong race.
"Also Pim rode a hell of a race. He helped closing the gap to Terpstra and afterwards he sprinted to second. He just came up short to follow Sinkeldam in the last corner. We are disappointed that we couldn’t win the race, but the team rode a very strong race.”
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