"It's a challenging course and then this can happen. Meeusen hit Van Aert's bike with his knee during the pile-up in the penultimate lap but he didn't mind too much. I'm happy I managed two fourth places this weekend," Meeusen said. Tom Meeusen was in the mix for a podium spot in Valkenburg after a week in which he received a critical comment from team manager Sven Nys. After the stairs I felt I didn't have enough left in the tank," Vanthourenhout told Telenet Play Sports. "Due to the crash I had quite a big gap but I knew it would be hard to hold on to. Due to the crash from Van Aert and Meeusen the young Belgian nearly captured second place but Van Aert passed him again late in the race. Vanthourenhout profited from the slower pace up front to bridge back up, together with Meeusen and Pauwels. It was an option to leave him alone in front for a bit longer but you don't know how good he is," Van der Poel said. Once he has a gap it's hard to close down. "He put me under a lot of pressure and I was glad I could close the gap. After the duo got together the pace dropped again as both riders needed time to recover. "Early on I threw my cards on the table and Mathieu was able to come back," Van Aert said. After four laps of racing the duo was 20 seconds ahead of chasers Meeusen, Vanthourenhout and Pauwels. The chase in front was full on and their pace blew away the rest of the pack. During the two following laps Van der Poel went in pursuit of Van Aert. Van der Haar crashed out of the lead, and halfway into the second lap Van Aert dropped his rivals, with Van der Poel still trailing at 11 seconds. Van der Poel didn't have a great start and the fast pace up front put him in trouble. Only Van der Haar, Vanthourenhout, Meeusen, Toon Aerts (Telenet-Fidea) and Kevin Pauwels (Marlux-Napoleon Games) were glued on his wheel. After a fast start from European champion Lars van der Haar (Giant-Alpecin) it was the world champion who took over the initiative. Much earlier in the race Van Aert had played his cards.
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