KADEN GROVES WINS GIRO D’ITALIA STAGE 5
On Wednesday, the stage five of Giro d’Italia offered thrilling moments. The rain-soaked course from Atripalda to Salerno, in South Italy, caused a series of crashes, including that of world champion Remco Evenepoel sparked by a dog. Mark Cavendish also fell on the ground and injured a knee, but apparently anything got broken. A 171 km chaotic spectacle which ended with the solo victory of the Alpecin-Deceuninck rider Kaden Groves. After achieving two third place during the previous stages, he crashed too this time, but that didn’t prevent him to reach the golden podium.
“It’s a dream to win. Everything was going well but then I crashed at the roundabout with seven kilometres to go. Luckily, I put my chain back on fast enough and the group came back together but it wasn’t very clean, we all got lost. The guys did a good job earlier and then luckily I was good enough to be in position and had the legs to lead out and win,” the Australian winner commented.
ALPECIN-DECEUNINCK DUO CONQUERS PARIS-ROUBAIX
“I had one of my best days on the bike,” said Mathieu van der Poel. After a solo attack, the Alpecin-Deceuninck team leader proudly raised up the iconic cobble stone at Parigi-Roubaix on Sunday. Collecting the 4th Monument’s trophy of his career, Van der Poel also took over the early lead-out of his teammate Jasper Philipsen. The latter stood up on the podium with the second place.
“I think I’ve done my best Classics season ever and to finish it off like this is a dream. It’s incredible how we rode as a team, with Jasper finishing second. It’s not possible to do better than this,” said Van der Poel.
Philipsen added: “We wouldn’t have dared to dream this, but it will stay with me for a long time. We can be very satisfied with the team. We are proud of ourselves. Everything had to fall into place and today it was for us. That is very beautiful”.
A SURPRISING PODIUM AT THE ROUBAIX VELODROME
On Saturday, the 3rd edition of Paris-Roubaix Femmes avec Zwift beautifully surprised the audience with an unexpected podium line-up. A thrilling outsprint brought the Canadian rider Alison Jackson to victory, while FENIX-Deceuninck Marthe Truyen conquered the Roubaix Velodrome by reaching the third place.
“I’m really happy,” Truyen claimed. “I come from cyclo-cross, I really like riding the cobbles. Paris-Roubaix has been my dream race since I was a kid. I was not scheduled for this race, I had Covid but it was a light fever, not too heavy. Once I started feeling good again for training, I started dreaming of coming here”.
The Belgian cyclist continued: “I was happy it was my task to go in the breakaway. I thought a group of 20 or 30 riders would catch us, and we could compete for the win with them. I had teammates, so it was a perfect situation. And then, in the last kilometres, I looked behind and it was still 5, 6 or 7 seconds, and it was technical, so it was not easy for a group to come back. And I realised we would sprint for victory.”
VAN DER POEL MARKED CYCLING HISTORY AT MILAN-SAN REMO 2023
62 years later his grandfather’s golden podium in Milan-San Remo, Mathieu van der Poel signed an important chapter in the history of cycling. On Sunday, the Dutch rider achieved a solo victory in the same race, also smashing 1995 Poggio climbing time record.
This crucial win came after his recent conquest of the cyclocross world title in Hoogerheide. Regarding Milan-San Remo, the Alpecin-Deceuninck champion proudly commented: “The easiest Monument to ride but it’s the most difficult one to win”.
Philipsen wins the final stage of Tirreno-Adriatico
After the fantastic spectacle of last Wednesday – where Jasper Philipsen sprinted to win Stage 3 thanks to van der Poel’s lead-out – yesterday the Belgian rider reached a second victory during the final. Also this time, the support of his Alpecin-Deceuninck teammate was decisive.
The overall race of Tirreno-Adriatico was won by Primoz Roglic, but with these two sprint victories Philipsen conquered the spotlight for next Saturday’s Milan-San Remo.
“We managed to be in a really good position thanks to all the motivation we had from the previous sprint stage – we knew we were able to do it again. The team and Mathieu again did an amazing job,” Philipsen said.
Fantastic victory of Philipsen thanks to Van der Poel’s lead-out
On Wednesday, the last 20 kilometres of Stage 3 of Tirreno-Adriatico 2023 was a rare spectacle. After a predictable battle disputed over almost 200 kilometres between the big ones of the different teams, the unexpected lead-out of Mathieu van der Poel brought Jasper Philipsen to victory. Paved his way by the Dutch teammate, Philipsen could end the race with a great sprint of 150 metres, making Alpecin-Deceuninck achieve its first victory of the season.
Verde Comodoro is back!
FENIX-Deceuninck will race Giro Donne 2023 in Verde Comodoro. The special edition jersey was revealed on Saturday when the team wore it for Strade Bianche, the first Italian Spring Classic of the season.
The iconic FENIX® colour was used for the first time in 2022 for the Alpecin-FENIX (now Alpecin-Deceuninck) kit at Giro d’Italia. This shade of green, which was inspired by the peacefulness of nature, proved once again to be very distinctive amid the white gravel and hilly scenery that characterise the Crete Senesi, where the 9th edition of Strade Bianche Donne took place.
Strong performance by FENIX-Deceuninck with an solid 6th place by Puck Pieterse, in her Women’s WorldTour debut and second road race of the season. A memorable day that also saw Yara Kastelijn finished 15th and Christina Schweinberger 22nd.
Van der Poel is the 2023 UCI Cyclocross World Champion
The exciting winter duel between the two cyclocross titans, Mathieu van der Poel and Wout van Aert, came to an end on Sunday in Hoogerheide, Netherlands. Van der Poel managed to outsprint his rival and conquered the fifth golden medal of his career in men’s elite category.
With this victory, the Alpecin-Deceuninck team leader is officially the UCI Cyclocross World Champion. “I think if you take one of us two away, then it makes the races less interesting for sure. It was a good battle against Wout who is really hard to beat, so I’m happy,” van der Poel said.
Another long-disputed battle was fought on Hoogerheid ground between Puck Pieterse and Fem van Empel. After a new head-to-head race on Saturday, the 21-years-old Alpecin-Deceuninck rider achieved the silver podium in her first elite of Cyclocross World Championship.
“There were a few laps that we were looking at each other and seeing where the rest was riding but Fem and I kept the pace high,” Pieterse argued. “It comes down to the details and the form on the day. We had some great battles this season, every race is different of course.”
Mathieu Van der Poel wins Benidorm Cyclocross World Cup
Getting the best out of a close battle with his rival Wout van Aert, Mathieu van der Poel conquered on Sunday the first place at UCI Cyclocross World Cup in Benidorm.
“To win is always super nice, but in the end, I think it was just a really nice race. It was quite dangerous, slippery and really difficult to ride faster than we were doing. In the end, it was a great battle against Wout. I’m really happy to win,” said the Alpecin-FENIX team captain after his victory in Spain.
The same day, another exciting duel was fought in Benidorm between Fem van Empel and Puck Pieterse. In the final lap of the women course, van Empel got a terrific acceleration that only Pieterse could keep up with. It ended with the silver podium for the Alpecin- Deceuninck rider, who followed van Empel by 3 seconds.
“Fem and I made really good race until the end. She was just a tiny bit better today,” Pieterse commented.
Puck Pieterse wins the Dutch CX National Championship
On Sunday afternoon, skilfully coping with a mud pool left by overnight river flooding, Puck Pieterse arrived solo to the finish line of the Dutch National Championships in Zaltbommel. For the first time out of the under-23s, the rider gained the golden podium becoming the new Dutch Women Elite champion. She was followed by her Alpecin-Deceuninck teammate Ceylin del Carmen Alvarado, who broke the finishing line 26 seconds later.
“In the last lap, I noticed that Ceylin came very close. I had half a minute lead, then I thought: something really crazy must be happening. But of course, you still have to go full throttle, otherwise, you will give up half a minute, especially on such a tough course. When I saw Ceylin getting closer and closer, I just ran for my life,” the winner said in an interview post race.
Pieterse’s victory in Netherlands followed Sanne Cant’s fourteenth title as Belgian Cyclocross Champion. After her Lokeren solo victory on Saturday, the Crelan-Fristads rider announced that she would focus on the road season with FENIX-Deceuninck team.
