Jasper Philipsen wins crash-marred Copenhagen Sprint

Jasper Philipsen of Alpecin-Premier Tech won the second edition of the Copenhagen Sprint on Sunday. After 228 kilometers of racing through the Danish wind and into the capital, the Belgian proved the strongest of what was left of the peloton after a heavy crash had split the race apart.

The Copenhagen Sprint is the newest addition to the WorldTour calendar. Last year, the first edition of the race was won by Red Bull-BORA-hansgrohe sprinter Jordi Meeus, who returned this year to defend his title. The women’s race had already taken place on Saturday, where Lorena Wiebes of SD Worx-Protime claimed her first victory since her Giro d’Italia disqualification.

On Sunday, it was the men’s turn, with the race getting underway around 11 a.m. With wind playing a role in the opening phase, the riders had to stay alert both literally and figuratively, and the pace was high from the very start. One painful early moment came when Sam Bennett of Pinarello-Q36.5 was dropped after barely thirty kilometers of racing in Denmark.

It was also raining, so the race was nervous right from the beginning. Even so, a five-man breakaway formed, made up of Rune Herregodts of UAE Emirates-XRG, William Blume Levy of Uno-X, Anders Foldager of Jayco AlUla, and Frederik Rodenberg and Mads Andersen of the Danish national selection.

They built a lead of around three minutes over the peloton, where crashes involving Arnaud De Lie of Lotto-Intermarché and Manlio Moro of Movistar were reported. The sprinters’ teams kept things under control as the race headed toward the local laps in the capital, but with twenty kilometers to go there was unfortunately a major crash involving, among others, Menno Huising of Visma | Lease a Bike and Taco van der Hoorn of Lotto-Intermarché. As a result, the first peloton was reduced to only around thirty riders.

Jasper Philipsen of Alpecin-Premier Tech, Sam Welsford of Netcompany INEOS and Tobias Lund Andresen of Decathlon CMA CGM were among those still present in the front group, which meant it was up to those teams to take responsibility. They had to do so, because the situation created by the crash meant there were suddenly far fewer riders available to bring the breakaway back. Herregodts, Blume Levy, Foldager and Andersen kept pushing hard at the front.

Tim Merlier of Soudal Quick-Step and Dylan Groenewegen of Unibet Rose Rockets found themselves on the wrong side of the split in the larger group, thirty seconds behind with ten kilometers still to race. That already looked like too much. The twisting city circuit, made even more difficult by the wet roads, made it hard to claw back time — something the first peloton discovered deep into the final kilometers, with the quartet still ahead.

Blume Levy began to play the tactical game with three kilometers to go, still holding an eight-second advantage, while behind him the remaining domestiques in the peloton were emptying themselves in pursuit. Rune Herregodts then chose to attack with a huge final kilometer, but the peloton eventually came over the top.

Decathlon CMA CGM led out the sprint for Andresen, but Philipsen managed to come past him right at the end to take the victory.

Author: David Bavin-Hobbs - [email protected]