Jasper Philipsen wins opening stage of BinckBank Tour
Jasper Philipsen beat Mads Pedersen and Pascal Ackermann in a sprint finish to claim stage 1 of the BinckBank Tour
Mathieu van der Poel, Mike Teunissen and Yves Lampaert all took three bonus seconds as they each won an intermediate sprint.
With 4.5km to go a big crash in the peloton led to a huge pile-up. A number of riders were knocked off their bikes and several were left nursing injuries after a touch of wheels.
Fuerte caída en #binckbanktour pic.twitter.com/HYtVOEQOPS
— Tito Puccetti (@titopuccettic) September 29, 2020
Pascal Ackermann launched his sprint too early and Philipsen fired from a long way back to weave his way past to take his fourth career victory.
“It was quite easy, a two guy break so it was quite relaxed,” Philipsen said. “Everybody knew it would be a bunch sprint today. A lot of team had interest in that, then it was quite hectic in the end while everybody was still fresh.
“I’m happy I could stay out of trouble and that I could finish it off in the first stage.”
VIDEO: 2020 Binck Bank Tour Stage 1 Highlights
2020 Binck Bank Tour Stage 1 Top 10
1 Jasper Philipsen (Bel) UAE Team Emirates 2:59:26
2 Mads Pedersen (Den) Trek-Segafredo
3 Pascal Ackermann (Ger) Bora-Hansgrohe
4 Danny Van Poppel (Ned) Circus-Wanty Gobert
5 Stefan Bissegger (Swi) EF Pro Cycling
6 Alberto Dainese (Ita) Team Sunweb
7 Nils Eekhoff (Ned) Team Sunweb
8 Lorrenzo Manzin (Fra) Total Direct Energie
9 Mathieu Van der Poel (Ned) Alpecin-Fenix
10 Tim Merlier (Bel) Alpecin-Fenix