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Huub Artz gave the Netherlands their fourth gold medal of the 2024 UEC Highway European Championships within the U23 males’s highway race, outsprinting Niklas Behrens (Germany) on the finish of the 162km race in Hasselt. Frenchman Léandre Lozouet rounded out the rostrum to take the bronze medal 10 seconds later.
Artz, Behrens and Lozouet went away within the profitable transfer with over 40km to go forward of the day’s last climbs of the Kolmontberg and Zammelenberg.
Scattered chase teams behind checked out one level to be dragging again the 30-second hole the leaders loved over the ultimate climb, however there wasn’t sufficient energy or coordination behind to completely eat into the lead on the closing native laps.
14km from the road, because the riders handed by way of the end line for the penultimate time, simply 20 seconds separated the leaders from the chase of Mats Wenzel (Luxembourg) and Fabian Weiss (Switzerland).
Nonetheless, that was as shut as these behind would get to the entrance of the race, leaving the three up entrance to resolve the medal positions. Inside the ultimate 5km, Lozouet was pressured to let go of gold and silver as Behrens attacked to go away him behind.
Artz caught with the German, nevertheless, and had sufficient within the dash to only edge out the 20-year-old within the ending dash.
“It is superb. I did not count on to win,” Artz mentioned after taking the win. “I used to be pondering all week ‘How can I presumably win?’
“We had an excellent group with three Dutch riders after which we went early with three of us however we had been all sturdy riders. Ultimately, it might be a matter of who had the quickest legs and it was me.
“I mentioned to my directeur sportif that I believe it will be a dash and I used to be ready, ready. Ultimately, the race broke open sooner than I assumed. I am comfortable that it turned out like this. It was excellent.”
The way it unfolded
With the time trialing over and completed with at this yr’s UEC Highway European Championships, consideration on Friday turned to the highway races, with the U23 males tackling a 162km course between Heusden-Zolder and Hasselt after the U23 ladies had earlier opened the highway racing motion.
The course featured six cobbled sectors together with two main cobbled climbs. Two ascents of the Kolmontberg and Zammelenberg each got here on two laps of a difficult Limburg circuit.
Carl Kagevi (Sweden), Halvor Sandstad (Norway), Stian Rosenlund (Denmark), Julian Borresch (Germany), Mats Wenzel (Luxembourg), Roman Holzer (Switzerland) and Mateusz Gajdulewicz (Poland) shaped the primary breakaway of the day, however with the Belgian and Dutch groups controlling the tempo, their lead by no means went a lot over half a minute.
As soon as the race reached the Limburg circuit, one other group received away with French trio Pierre Gautherat, Matys Grisel and Léandre Lozouet joined by Dutch trio of Huub Artz, Tibor del Grosso and Jesse Kramer, in addition to Rasmus Søjberg Pedersen (Denmark, Alessandro Borgo (Italy), Niklas Behrens (Germany), Fabian Weiss (Switzerland), Matyas Kopecky (Czechia), and Alexandre Kess (Luxembourg).
The primary climbs of the Kolmontberg and Zammelenberg sparked a counterattack of 9 riders because the race reached the cobbles of Manshoven the place Lozouet, Artz and Behrens received away from the leaders.
With extra cobbles mendacity forward on the Kriezel, their lead grew over the 13 chasers – Belgians Steffen De Schuyteneer and Sente Sentjens, plus Gautherat, Grisel, Del Groso, Kramer, Pedersen, Borgo, Christen, Weiss, Kopecky, Kess and Wenzel.
On the Zammelenberg, the chase group misplaced Grisel, whereas the peloton behind was in tatters. With 35km to go, Wenzel and Weiss attacked to attempt to go throughout however struggled to shut the hole, which held at simply over 30 seconds at 20km to go.
The second chase group that includes the Belgians was lengthy gone and lay nearly a minute additional behind, with the peloton 2:30 from the leaders. Up entrance, the main trio had loads of work to do to carry off the chase behind, however with the closest teams splitting into ones and twos on the hardest sections of the course, they only needed to maintain working collectively.
The leaders continued in direction of the end holding a slim lead of by no means greater than 30 seconds, but it surely proved to be sufficient to settle the race for the title as they fought amongst themselves through the closing circuit in Hasselt.
Ultimately, it was Artz who prevailed within the dash for the road, outpacing Behrens after the pair had distanced Lozouet a handful of kilometres away from the end.
Outcomes
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