The Belgian put in a solid display on the roads to Boulogne-sur-Mer, which returned at the race for the first time since 2012.
A pulsating finale at the end of the second day brought in the mix the puncheurs, but more importantly, the general classification men. Côte du Haut Pichot, Côte de Saint-Étienne-au-Mont and Côte d’Outreau were the three small classified climbs where the race exploded, the furious tempo pushed at the front thinning out the peloton at first before leaving a group of six alone in the lead.
Having been brought in a good position and protected there by his Soudal Quick-Step teammates just as things became nervous and many teams started fighting for positioning, Remco Evenepoel responded with ease to the accelerations and made it into the leading group. On the descent, they were joined by others, which soon led to more attacks, the Olympic Champion being among those who responded to one of these accelerations, keeping everything together as the reduced bunch tackled the short climb to the finish.
The day’s winner emerged following an uphill sprint, where Mathieu Van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck) prevailed, moving into the yellow jersey. Remco concluded the 209.1km stage in the same time and made a huge jump in the standings, where he is now just a couple of seconds from the top ten ahead of Monday’s flat stage to Dunkerque, where the sprinters should return in the spotlight.
“We did a great job as a team today! I had four guys with me on the steepest climb of the day and I’m happy I got over this hectic stage. The feeling was good on this stage and this is something that gives me more confidence after what happened on the first day. We’ll continue to take it day by day and stay focused”, Evenepoel said at the finish.
Photo credit: ©Dario Belingheri / Getty Images
