Mathieu van der Poel shapes up for Tour de France with long Baloise Belgium Tour lead-out

Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck) takes the sprint victory on stage 1 of the Baloise Belgium Tour as teammate Mathieu van der Poel celebrates in the background
Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck) takes the sprint victory on stage 1 of the Baloise Belgium Tour as teammate Mathieu van der Poel celebrates in the background (Image credit: Getty Images Sport)

Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin Deceuninck) helped drive the pace in a break that launched with 88km to go on stage 1 of the Baloise Belgium Tour, spending much of the day on the attack, but even when the front group was caught at just over 2km to go the Dutch rider stayed up the front.

Van der Poel's work to set up the stage for sprinter Jasper Philipsen was not yet done. The rider slotted into his place in the Alpecin Deceuninck lead-out train and shepherding the sprinter until the last hundred metres of the race to finish off a day of work at the front that started before the stage was even halfway through.

Simone Giuliani
Australia Editor

Simone is a degree-qualified journalist that has accumulated decades of wide-ranging experience while working across a variety of leading media organisations. She joined Cyclingnews as a Production Editor at the start of the 2021 season and has now moved into the role of Australia Editor. Previously she worked as a freelance writer, Australian Editor at Ella CyclingTips and as a correspondent for Reuters and Bloomberg. Cycling was initially purely a leisure pursuit for Simone, who started out as a business journalist, but in 2015 her career focus also shifted to the sport.