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Wout van Aert, Mathieu van der Poel and Tadej Pogačar were locked in a member’s only contest out front at the E3 Saxo Classic, but Matteo Jorgenson would prove the best of the rest by day’s end in Harelbeke, clipping away from the chasing group to claim a fine fourth place.
The Movistar rider had as good a view of their flyby on the Stationberg as anybody else, and he quickly understood that there was nothing to be done but watch the elite trio glide out of sight over the crest of the hill. When a muddied Jorgenson wheeled to a halt past the finish line on Stasegemsesteenweg, he was asked to recall that sonic boom with 57km to go.
“It was just full gas and I just saw them riding away from me like that, while I was in the gutter suffering,” Jorgenson said. “Those guys are really impressive. Hopefully one day I can be at that level.”
Jorgenson is getting there, but for now, like everybody else in the peloton, he is compelled to find ways to work around the otherworldly strength of the men who filled the podium spots on Friday. Van der Poel and the day’s winner Van Aert delivered an early warning when their joust on the Taaienberg splintered the bunch with 80km to go, and when Pogacar dragged an elite group across, Jorgenson figured his best chance of avoiding their crossfire was to try to get ahead of it.
“After the Taaienberg, I went solo just to get ahead of the race a little bit, because I knew that when those guys went, I probably wouldn’t be able to go with them,” Jorgenson said of his attack with 75km remaining.
“But it was probably a bad moment. I went ahead and then they caught me, and as soon as they caught me, another group attacked, and I didn’t go with it. I basically just stayed with the big guys. When those three went, I couldn’t go with them, obviously, but I think we did the best we could.”
Van Aert, Van der Poel and Pogačar quickly established a winning advantage over a shell-shocked second group, where Soudal-QuickStep, traditionally so dominant on this terrain, were most conspicuous by their absence.
Instead, Groupama-FDJ and Movistar were the only teams with multiple riders still in the hunt behind, but it was quickly apparent that they would not see the three leaders again before Harelbeke. After the day’s final climbs, Jorgenson found himself in the company of teammate Ivan Garcia Cortina, Stefan Küng (Groupama-FDJ) and Matej Mohorič (Bahrain Victorious).
“The four of us worked well together for the last…
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