Fabio Jakobsen (Soudal-QuickStep) sprinted to his fourth win of the season on stage 2 of the Baloise Belgium Tour in Knokke-Heist, the European champion beating Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck) in the uphill drag to the finish.
Jasper De Buyst (Lotto-Dstny) rounded out the podium in third place, sneaking past Alexander Kristoff (Uno-X) just before the line.
Jakobsen now takes over the race lead, though he’s tied on time with Van der Poel.
The dash to the line in the seaside town saw Soudal-QuickStep take over on the front, with lead-out man Michael Mørkøv delivering Jakobsen to the perfect place to start his sprint. After launching, the Dutchman had Uno-X right behind him, struggling to close the gap before Van der Poel shot up the middle of the road with De Buyst on his wheel.
The effort was too late to make any impression on Jakobsen, however, as he eased across the line to secure the win while Van der Poel and De Buyst sped past Kristoff at the death.
At 4km out from the finish, two of the top contenders for the win – stage 1 winner Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck) and Caleb Ewan (Lotto-Dstny) – were both taken out of the running after a crash near the front of the peloton. While Philipsen was quick to get up and start racing again, Ewan lingered in the road for some time and was clearly in some discomfort after hitting the ground hard.
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