Elisa Balsamo beats Charlotte Kool to win Classic Brugge-De Panne

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Elisa Balsamo (Lidl-Trek) won the Classic Brugge-De Panne, taking her second victory in the race after winning the 2022 edition. Balsamo outsprinted Charlotte Kool (dsm-firmenich PostNL) on the Zeelaan in De Panne, with Daria Pikulik (Human Powered Health) rounding out the podium in third place.

There were several breakaways during the flat race, the last coming from Nina Buijsman (FDJ-SUEZ), who was reeled in by dsm-firmenich PostNL with 6.5 kilometres to go. 

The Dutch team then set up an ideal lead-out train, but Balsamo jumped from Kool's wheel and had the higher speed, easily beating Kool to the line.

“I am really happy and satisfied. I want to thank my teammates because they did a fantastic job, and I couldn't have finished this race better. I am feeling good; that is the most important thing for me. After last year, it was really not easy to come back. But I feel that the team really trusts me,” Balsamo said.

“I knew it was going to be a very hard-fought sprint. My teammates did an amazing lead-out and put me in the best possible position behind Kool. For me, starting behind Kool was the best choice, and then when I saw 200 metres, I just went full gas,” she described the sprint.

Despite the flat route and relative lack of wind, there were numerous breakaway attempts, but Lidl-Trek controlled the race well.

“My teammates did a great job; they always went into the breakaways and never let anyone go because we wanted this sprint finish, so I have to thank them,” Balsamo finished.

How it unfolded

Without any hills on the course and the wind forecast to stay below 15 km/h, the 155-kilometre race was widely expected to finish in a sprint – but it wasn’t for lack of trying by the breakaway artists.

After several attempts that were reeled in very quickly, Nathalie Bex (Chevalmeire) attacked with 111km to go and was the first to get away. Her advantage maxed out at 1:43 minutes, but Bex was caught before the first passage through the finish with two laps of a 43.9-kilometre circuit to go.

Next were Alessia Vigilia (FDJ-SUEZ) and Lisa van Helvoirt (VolkerWessels), who attacked early on the first of these finishing laps, built a gap of up to 35 seconds, but were caught 63km from the line.

Alison Jackson (EF Education-Cannondale) was very active in the last hour and a half of racing, but none of her moves got away. Instead, it was her teammate Letizia Borghesi who jumped off the front together with Christina Schweinberger (Fenix-Deceuninck) and Alice Wood (née Barnes, Human Powered Health), with Eugenia Bujak (UAE Team ADQ) bridging the ten-second gap on her own.

As the gap shrank, several more riders jumped across, but the front group was brought back before the first passage through the wind-swept De Moeren. Here, Gladys Verhulst-Wild (FDJ-SUEZ) went solo and quickly held a half-minute gap.

From the peloton, an attack by Linda Riedmann (Visma-Lease a Bike) eventually led to a chase group that also included Noemi Rüegg (EF Education-Cannondale), Flora Perkins (Fenix-Deceuninck), Aude Biannic (Movistar Team), Ilse Pluimers (AG Insurance-Soudal), and Silke Smulders (Liv-AlUla-Jayco) and reached Verhulst-Wild just before passing the finish.

But with dsm-firmenich PostNL chasing, the gap was down to only five seconds, and the group was reeled in at the start of the final lap. Kathrijn De Clercq (Lotto Dstny Ladies) was the next rider who could get away, but her move only lasted for a few kilometres.

Multiple attacks that followed were not getting anywhere until Buijsman went off 23km from the line. After hovering around 15 seconds for a while, her gap then quickly increased to a maximum of 1:13 minutes with 13km to go, just before De Moeren.

On the straight and open road, dsm-firmenich PostNL took charge and steadily reduced Buijsman’s advantage, making the catch 6.5km from the finish. The sprint trains were now fighting for position at the front of the peloton, with dsm-firmenich PostNL well in control as their rider Daniek Hengeveld closed down a final attack by Schweinberger through a corner with 3.5km to go.

The Dutch team then dropped back a bit, and Lidl-Trek took the front of the race until dsm-firmenich PostNL surged back in the final kilometre. Kool still had her teammates Franziska Koch and Rachele Barbieri in front of her through the right-hand turn with 600 metres to go, but Clara Copponi had put her sprinter Balsamo right on Kool’s wheel.

When Kool launched her sprint from Barbieri’s wheel, this gave Balsamo a ‘sprinter’s gap’ behind Barbieri to stay in the slipstream for a little while longer than her rival while cranking up the speed, and Balsamo came past Kool with 125 metres to go and won by a bikelength while Pikulik narrowly beat Chiara Consonni (UAE Team ADQ) to third place.

Results

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