For Tiesj Benoot, his victory at Sunday's Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne was more than a late move to cap off what was a dominant Opening Weekend for his Jumbo-Visma team, but the culmination of a comeback from a serious injury that had him doubting whether he'd ever race again.
Just under seven months ago, the Belgian all-rounder was hit by a driver while out training near Livigno in the Italian Alps, suffering a neck fracture in the process and immediately ending his 2022 season.
While his injuries weren't life-threatening, the crash still affected him severely, he said in the press conference following his win in Kuurne. After making his racing return just a day earlier as part of the squad which dominated Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, he had won already.
"It's incredible to win on my second day of racing already after seven months out," Benoot said. "A few months ago, I doubted whether I was going to be a cyclist anymore. Yesterday, I immediately felt that my legs were good enough to win.
"I had that feeling in training too, but it's nice to confirm. For a rider like me who doesn't win so much, this is special."
His late move following the final bend of the 193km race saw him capture only the fourth win of his career, the previous victory coming at Paris-Nice three seasons ago.
It was the last blow struck in a day of them, many by his Jumbo-Visma team, who, like they had on Saturday, went long with an acceleration on Le Bourliquet 84km from the finish. More attacks and splits would follow, ending with Benoot and Van Hooydonck outthinking and overpowering breakmates Matej Mohorič (Bahrain Victorious), Taco van der Hoorn (Intermarché-Circus-Wanty), and Tim Wellens (UAE Team Emirates) in the finale.
"We knew we had to start the race early," Benoot said. "The last 60km are quite easy and with strong sprinters here we wanted to try something different, and we did. Pulling that off is less obvious than it seems, but we managed to execute an ambitious plan perfectly two days in a row.
"I would react if Wellens attacked, and Nathan would if Mohorič attacked. Of course, we also planned to attack, so that's what we did. Nathan went at 3km to go, and he really put pressure on Mohorič and Wellens. That gave me an armchair ride, and then I tried once. Maybe it wasn't full on, but it was the way to make a gap."
"Nathan went again just before the last corner and I think that was by instinct," Benoot added. "They reacted and then straight after the last corner I went. I thought I saw Wellens coming back and I knew that if someone closed the gap then their sprint would be good.
"Fortunately, I was strong enough to stay ahead and Nathan took second. It was magnificent again!"
Benoot's victory on Sunday followed new teammate Dylan van Baarle's win at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and marked only the second time since 1984 that one team had pulled off a clean sweep of the Opening Weekend. It was QuickStep in 2019 that were the only others to do so in the years since Eddy Planckaert and Jos Lammertink did the double for Panasonic all those years ago.
Jumbo-Visma were simply a class above the rest of the peloton across the weekend, and while Benoot acknowledged that may be the case, he did say the team had to keep perspective.
"I'm not going to argue that, but it's important that we stay critical about ourselves," he said. "That was the first thing we said at training camp in December. Last year we were the fox hunting the rabbit, now we're the rabbit in front of the fox."
