Kool comes up short in Classic Brugge-De Panne sprint despite polished lead-out

Charlotte Kool and her dsm-firmenich PostNL teammates had high hopes for the Classic Brugge-De Panne and were eager to follow up on Pfeiffer Georgi’s solo victory last year, targeting a winning sprint finish this time around. However, the team came up short in the final, and Kool ended up taking second place.

With SD Worx-Protime having withdrawn from the race due to injuries, their main rivals were Lidl-Trek and Elisa Balsamo. In the end, though, Kool finished just behind Balsamo in the bunch sprint, despite the excellent teamwork that put her in pole position going into the finishing straight. 

The Dutch sprinter was understandably tight-lipped about her performance in the post-race interview. “Of course, I am disappointed. We don’t come for second places, but someone was faster today. The feeling was actually good, but I just missed a bit in the final,” she said.

The team had taken charge of the race in the final as Nienke Vinke and Abi Smith chased hard to bring back late attacker Nina Buijsman (FDJ-SUEZ). After that, Smith and Daniek Hengeveld took turns to keep the team at the front of the peloton.

With 3.2km to go, just as Smith finished her last turn, Christina Schweinberger (Fenix-Deceuninck) made a last solo move through a right turn, and Hengeveld had to jump after the Austrian to close the gap. 

This cost her some power, and as a result, Hengeveld couldn’t keep the team’s sprint train at the very front anymore but did continue to give shelter to her teammates and ride near the front of the peloton.

The 21-year-old swung off through the roundabout back onto the main road, 1.9km from the finish. Next up was Franziska Koch who brought the train back to the front and lead through the corner onto the finishing straight with 600 metres to go. Koch stood up in her pedals to push the pace even higher and finally handed over to Rachele Barbieri with 400 metres to go.

In a notable departure from the team’s usual focus on young talents, the 27-year-old transferred to the team ahead of the 2024 season. Barbieri has been a successful sprinter in her own right and was brought in specifically as the last rider ahead of Kool, as the sprinter explained to Cyclingnews earlier this month.

Barbieri gave it everything to lead out Kool, who then launched her sprint at the 200-metre sign, a split-second before Balsamo jumped from Kool’s rear wheel, briefly using Barbieri’s slipstream and then speeding past Kool with 125 metres to go to win the race.

All things considered, the team didn’t make any obvious mistakes. Maybe, possibly, it would have been better to have Barbieri start her lead-out a little bit earlier, giving her more time to push up the speed and make it harder for Balsamo to come around from the back, but decisions in a sprint are made within a few seconds if that – the whole 600-metre finishing straight was covered in only 37 seconds.

The hard truth which Kool didn't shy away from acknowledging in her comments, is that someone else was simply faster today.