And just like that, Per Strand Hagenes suddenly finishes second behind Van der Poel in the E3: “You know the games are going to start”

Van der Poel launched a huge effort on Friday, going solo with 60 kilometres still to race. The Dutchman looked to be heading for an emphatic victory, but in the finale he was almost caught by Florian Vermeersch (UAE Team Emirates-XRG), Stan Dewulf (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale), Jonas Abrahamsen (Uno-X Mobility) and Hagenes. Almost, but not quite — and that left the Norwegian to sprint for second.

“I think, for me, second place is a good result. We have to be honest about that,” Hagenes began in the flash interview on HBO Max. Honest, yes — but a huge upset had come very close as well. “When you see how close you get in the end, of course you hope you can fight for the win.”

What ultimately prevented that was the breakdown in cooperation among the chasers. “You know that in the finale, in the group we were in, the games are going to start,” the Norwegian explained. “Unfortunately, because of that, we couldn’t bring him back and so we couldn’t sprint for the win. That’s racing. I think second place is a very good result for me, so I’m pretty happy.”

The chasing group came incredibly close in the final kilometre, but once Abrahamsen stopped contributing, it was suddenly over. So what exactly happened? “There wasn’t a lot of talking. I spoke a little with Abrahamsen in Norwegian, but not much. Vermeersch wanted Abrahamsen to do another turn.”

That did not happen, as Hagenes himself also saw. “He didn’t want to, and I didn’t want to either,” the Visma | Lease a Bike rider laughed. He and his fellow Norwegian were not the only ones refusing to close the gap. “Vermeersch didn’t want to close it either.” And so Van der Poel stayed away. “That’s racing. It is what it is in the end,” said the mature-sounding 22-year-old Norwegian.

Still, finishing second behind Van der Poel is more than enough reason to be pleased. Hagenes saw it that way too, especially after repeatedly showing good form without getting the result to match. “I think I’ve shown a good level in the other races, but it just hadn’t really gone my way yet.”

“Sometimes that was my fault, sometimes it was just the way racing goes,” the Norwegian continued. “So it’s nice to finally get a result. Last year wasn’t a perfect season either, to put it that way, so it’s nice to finally achieve something.” That was the conclusion from the rider who ended the day in second place.