Arnaud De Lie wins Marcel Kint Classic

Arnaud De Lie celebrated his fourth win of the season in the Marcel Kint Classic. The 20-year-old Walloon rider was the fastest of a reduced bunch after an impressive lead-out of Lotto Soudal. This victory is already number seventeen of the season for the Belgian WorldTour team. 

The Marcel Kint Classic was the seventh race in the Exterioo Cycling Cup, a series of races in Belgium and The Netherlands. Arnaud De Lie comfortably leads the classification. After passing over the Oude Kwarement and Paterberg twice during a first big loop, a reduced bunch made it to the local circuit in Zwevegem. All our leaders were present, only Florian Vermeersch had to abandon after a mechanical.
 
At the local circuit, the early breakaway was reeled in just in time. After that, Victor Campenaerts, Brent Van Moer, Cedric Beullens and Reinardt Janse van Rensburg made sure Arnaud De Lie was in the perfect position to launch his sprint. De Lie had no trouble putting the rest of the group far behind him with an impressive sprint.

“I had an incredibly good feeling today”, said a satisfied Arnaud De Lie after the race. “We did everything we could to make the race as hard as possible and we succeeded. After the different climbs, we aimed for a sprint with the reduced group. That turned out perfectly for us.”
 
Arnaud De Lie had kind words for his teammates, who put him in the best position to launch his final sprint. “In the finale the team did everything perfectly. There has been some criticism on my lead-out the past couple of weeks, but today we have shown that we had the best lead-out of the race. When I could start my sprint, I still had a lot in the tank. This is very promising for our next races as well.”
 

Photo's: Photo News and Maxime Van der Wielen.