Trek Factory Racing leads the chase of a dangerous breakaway in the Kampioenschap Van Vlaanderen to help secure a bunch sprint.

It was a long day in the saddle for the selfless teammates of Danny van Poppel as they led the chase of a dangerous 13-man escape group that included André Greipel (Lotto-Belisol), which formed with over 120 kilometers remaining of the 192-kilometer circuit race.

The 99th Kampioenschap van Vlaanderen (Flanders Championship) covered 16 laps of 12.3 kilometers and with 10 laps remaining the breakaway, precariously missed by Trek Factory Racing, had quickly gained a three minute lead.

“They made it very difficult for themselves today by missing the breakaway. I don’t care if it’s a break of 4 or 5 but when it is 13 riders and Lotto is there? Then we have to be there immediately!”

“It always takes a bit before we have the numbers of the break, and I also had the last car number today, so we had no idea and had to wait for the info from radio tour. When we heard it was 13 leaders and Laurent [Didier] was at 20 seconds chasing, but they already had a minute!”

“In one lap it went to over three minutes, and then we knew we had a problem. FDJ had one in the break; all the sprinters' teams had someone. I did not give them an option, they missed this and they had to chase all day. In the end they were very, very tired,” Dirk Demol said to the Trek site.

The breakaway was finally nullified in the closing kilometers when FDJ.fr and Lotto-Belisol both decided a buch kick served better odds of victory and aided the catch with a clearly fatigued Trek Factory Racing team.

“The team was strong, but they made it difficult on themselves. The race was hard with a big peloton on a circuit that had a lot of corners, and they had to work hard, hard. When a group goes of 13 riders and they are not there, then there is nothing to do but pull the whole day. That’s it.”

“In the break everyone was watching Greipel and they were all against him, and he had to cover all the attacks, so Lotto decided to work for the sprint finish with van Genechten. At the end we could not close it without the help from FDJ and Lotto,” he continued.

Everything was back together in the final kilometer and Arnaud Démare (FDJ.fr) won the bunch sprint over Luka Mezgec (Giant-Shimano) and Jonas van Genechten (Lotto Belisol).  Danny van Poppel finished fifth.

“Danny was there in good position, but near the end he was stopped for a moment and could not really make his sprint. He was still fifth and that is not a bad result, but on the other side we completely missed the race and were on the defensive all day long. This was not good, and there is no reason for me to be a happy man,” he finished.

But Dirk could not end it on a negative note after last night’s historic ride by Jens Voigt, which had an impact on everyone, including his team racing in Belgium who gathered to watch - along with 100 million viewers worldwide - his Hour Record ride:

“But I’m still happy about the performance about Jens yesterday!  What a man, eh? What a man!"