Local speedster Jordi Meeus has won a fast and furious edition of Binche-Chimay-Binche, a last blast across the Belgian semi-Classic’s final sector of cobbles, taking the Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe sprinter to the 15th victory of his career.
Meeus zipped down the left-hand side of the barriers in Binche to stave off Nils Eekhoff (Picnic-PostNL) and former Binche winner Christophe Laporte (Visma-Lease a Bike) to raise his arms for the first time since the Copenhagen Classic in June.
How it unfolded
After Nils Politt (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) got the ball rolling with an early move on a chilly but dry day in southern Belgium, the sprinters’ team did an excellent job of ensuring that none of the breaks in the first half of the race managed to stick.
It was only long after the peloton had begun the return leg from Chimay back to Binche that a really promising move emerged, containing Alec Segaert (Lotto), Florian Vermeersch (UAE Team Emirates-XRG), Victor Campenaerts (Visma-Lease a Bike), US racer and former Paris-Tours winner Riley Sheehan (Israel-Premier Tech) and Jonas Abrahamsen (Uno-X Mobility).
The move demanded so much pace-setting behind, in fact, it actually split the peloton as the race roared back to Binche and for the first of five local laps. The five-man break was not so strong enough to stay away for more than 20 kilometres, but the speed of the chase was such that there was one crucial development: as a result of the split, top favourite Jasper Philipsen was missing from the running.
After one ferociously fast lap, presumably to try and keep Philipsen at bay in the second group, a three-rider move did claw its way clear in the…
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