Tom Meeusen won the seventh round of the GVA Trofee
Tom Meeusen won the penultimate round of the Gazet van Antwerpen Trophy on Saturday. He launched an attack early during the race but struggled to get through the leading bunch.
The Belgian continued the fight at the frozen course in Lille Belgium and managed the top spot during the final lap.
He finished the race in the quickest time of 1 hour, 2 minutes and 7 seconds to overcome Zdenek Stybar and Kevin Pauwels.
Meeusen missed the bronze medal at the UCI Cyclo-cross World Championships in Koksijde.
He fell four seconds short of his compatriot, Kevin Pauwels, and had to settle for the fourth position.
Niels Albert won the Cyclo World Cup with an impressive time of 1:06:07, while Rob Peeters achieved the second spot. The Belgian made up for the Worlds after filling his bag with a tremendous win at Lille.
He told Sporza after the race, “They call me the iceman because I tend to perform well on ice. If there’s one snowflake people are already saying it’s a race for me. As far as I’m concerned, this weather can last forever”.
Belgian champion, Sven Nys had another disappointing day. “In the hectic manoeuvres ahead of the final sprint my chain must have dropped to the small ring. I didn’t realise and tried to shift up but that didn’t work out”, he said.
He continued, “I was able to stay on Meeusen’s wheel for a bit but then it was too fast to do more.” Nys finished the race behind Kevin Pauwels to claim the fourth spot.
Stybar grabbed 11 points to occupy the top place at the Sprint classification, while Sven Nys and Kevin Pauwels attained the second and third positions, with 8 and 6 points, respectively.
Pauwels is currently leading the GVA Trofee after the 7 rounds. He bagged as many as 154 points to himself while Zdenek Stybar is at the second position with 142 points.
Sven Nys, Niels Albert and Tom Meeusen are at the third, fourth and fifth positions with 124, 114 and 98 points after the round 7 classifications.
On the other hand, Marianne Vos won the women’s category of the race, ahead of the second and third place finishers, Daphny van den Brand and Sanne Cant.
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