D'hoore sprints to third Belgian title

Top favourite Jolien D'hoore (Wiggle-Honda) easily grabbed the sprint victory at the Belgian championships in Tervuren on Saturday morning with Lotte Kopecky (Topsport Vlaanderen-ProDuo-Ridley) and Sofie De Vuyst (Lensworld.eu-Zannata) crossing the line in second and third place the podium turned out to be a copy of the 2014 title race.

Only in the final kilometre, in the streets of Tervuren was the 27km long solo move from Jessie Daams (Lotto-Soudal Ladies) neutralized.

"Jessie Daams was very strong today. To me, she deserved the victory because she was the best in the race. It was very hard, without teammates but it’s one of the most beautiful jerseys in the peloton and I wanted to keep it for another year. Now I can head to the Giro in the Belgian tricolor,” D’hoore told Sporza.

In-form D’hoore was runner-up in the Belgian time-trial championship on Friday and recently the 25 year-old finished as runner-up in the Aviva Women’s Tour where she also won a stage.

Daams strongest, D’hoore fastest

The four were joined by 23 other riders and this turned out to be the group that would battle for the title.

Although there were still just over two laps to cover Jessie Daams went all in by launching a solo attack. She gathered more than half a minute on the peloton. At 15km from the finish line Daams’ lead over the peloton was still 37s. Lotte Kopecky realized that without action from the peloton Daams would ride away with the tricolor jersey. Kopeckey tried to close the gap on her own. She came back to twenty seconds but was then caught back at 4km from the finish line. Daams was still leading by 17s at that stage of the race but within the final kilometre she was reeled back in. In the sprint D’hoore was by a huge margin over Kopecky and De Vuyst.

“Ultimately the gap was closed and at 200 metres from the finish line I believed in the victory,” D’hoore said. “I’m a power sprinter so the uphill finish suited me perfectly. I was leading quite early but otherwise I risked being boxed in so it was all or nothing.”

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