Pfeiffer Georgi claims 3rd at tricky edition of Omloop van het Hageland

An intriguing day of racing at Omloop van het Hageland saw Kristin Faulkner take the win from the earlier breakaway, while Pfeiffer Georgi showed her Team dsm-firmenich PostNL colours in the sprint from the chasing group; taking a solid third place at the line.

It was a steady start to proceedings with a few probing attacks before the eventual breakaway managed to go clear. Biding their time in the peloton, the team looked to stay safe and conserve energy, protecting fast finisher Charlotte Kool – who was making her season debut after skipping UAE Tour due to illness. The gap grew to the breakaway until they entered the last 40 kilometres where the attacks started, with the clock sitting at around three minutes. Georgi was quick to mark a dangerous looking move which quickly got a gap over the bunch, but they couldn’t eat into Faulkner’s lead. Behind, the Team dsm-firmenich PostNL train helped to close down the counter-attacking group but heading into the final 15 kilometres it was clear that Faulkner would take the win. This then led to multiple attacks in the bunch before a group, containing Georgi once again, escaped. Coming into the finish Georgi used her experience to pick a good wheel and launched a strong sprint, just missing out on “winning” the sprint from that group, resulting in third on the day for the team at Omloop van het Hageland.

Speaking after the race Georgi said: “Today was another tough race with lots of short climbs and narrow roads and it was really attacking all day. Our plan was to sprint with Charlotte but other teams had the goal to attack and make the race hard, so it was really difficult to control. Faulkner was really strong and in the end we were only able to sprint for second. There were still late attacks which I followed and ended up going for the result. It’s definitely not what we came for but I think we again showed ourselves well as a team and can be happy with a podium considering the nature of the race.”

Team dsm-firmenich PostNL coach Kelvin Dekker added: “We came here to sprint with Charlotte, that was the goal. We knew that it is a race where you have to balance the hard attacks with the sprint in the finish. Faulkner went on the attack and we maybe underestimated her a bit, but some other teams then had their own goals of attacking and making the race hard, and credit to Faulkner, she was too strong to close it down with just attacks. We kept to the plan of trying to go for the sprint even if it was for second. In the final Pfeiffer was really strong and could follow more of the attacks in the final two kilometres and brought home a nice podium for us. It’s obviously not what we came for but the team worked really hard today and did a good job. I think they did everything they could have done so we have to be happy with third and the podium here.”