Final KM: Schelderprijs, Healthy Ageing Tour St 1, Itzulia Basque Country St 3

Surprises in the new style Schelderprijs, time trial dominance at the Healthy Ageing Tour and a scrappy-do of a sprint finish at Itzulia.

Schelderprijs: Terneuzen to Schoten, 2004km

Quick Step Floor’s winning streak marches on with Fabio Jakobsen taking the sprint finish in Schoten to add to his Nokere Koerse victory last month.. The young Dutchman won it handily after the usual smooth work from his team on the run to the line. Pascal Ackermann (BORA-hansgrohe) and Chris Lawless (Sky) rounded out the podium.

Video…

Winning is hard. Quick Step making it look easy #Scheldeprijs

— Frederick Dreier (@freddreier) April 4, 2018

First Dutch victory in #Scheldeprijs since 2005! Congrats, @FabioJakobsen! pic.twitter.com/4VzAZOtZMs

— Quick-Step Cycling (@quickstepteam) April 4, 2018

This race is a sprint fest. Taking nothing away from the Quicksteppers it’s fair to say these names were not the ones most people expected to see at the top of the result sheet.

Kittel has given up, so all prognostics can be thrown overboard: no Démare, no Groenewegen, no Kittel… Who will win this exciting Scheldeprijs? #SP #SP18

— Scheldeprijs (@Scheldeprijs) April 4, 2018

There were incidents and accidents.

Five time winner Marcel Kittel (Katusha-Alpecin) suffered a series of unfortunate mechanicals – a late puncture being the final straw.

The third flat tyre was too much, even for @marcelkittel . His disappointed explanation in Schoten after the @Scheldeprijs . #racetowin #raceasafamily : https://t.co/UAnPa3MktQ pic.twitter.com/DiQGKz3JH6

— Team KATUSHA ALPECIN (@katushacycling) April 4, 2018

Arnaud Demare (Groupama-FDJ) and Dylan Groenewegen (LottoNL-Jumbo) were amongst a group of 35 riders quite rightly disqualified for jumping a railway level crossing as the barriers were closing.

Riders rush the level crossing as lights flash and gates close, several disqualified including Groenewegen, Démare, Hodeg, Boeckmans #SP18 pic.twitter.com/b2PeDjkvNm

— the Inner Ring (@inrng) April 4, 2018

The rules around level crossings were tightened up and clarified after the incident at Paris Roubaix in 2014. If you go through when the red light is flashing there will be consequences – the least of which will arrive from the race commissaires. No excuses are accepted, some riders’s reactions were more considered than others.

The story of the day, don't pass when the railways light are flashing red ! Sorry it was impossible to stop at 60 km/h when we saw the light ! ❌ pic.twitter.com/LYQOPJH0TQ

— Hugo Houle (@HugoHoule) April 4, 2018

Genuine mistake today and I'm sorry. In a group chasing full gas just behind the front group after a crash caused a split in bunch. We were going full gas and I did not see the railway until I was literally on it. Did not see any red lights or hear any alarm. 1/2

— Conor Dunne (@conordunnealot) April 4, 2018

At that point I was only looking at the wheel in front and concentrating on not crashing in the gutter. It was a mistake and I'm sorry, but it genuinely wasn't done intentionally. 2/2

— Conor Dunne (@conordunnealot) April 4, 2018

Full race report at Cycling News

Healthy Ageing Tour Stage 1: Heerenveen to Heerenveen, ITT, 8km

Anna van der Breggan laid the power down along the streets of Heerenveen to take victory from Boels-Dolmans teammate Chantal Blaak by 2secs – despite a mechanical mishap with her TT bars 3km from the finish. Wiggle High5’s Lisa Brennauer took the third step of the podium. With 4 riders in a top 10 covered by 29secs and a team time trial to come the Dutch team must be confident going into the next 4 stages.

I couldn’t find a video, but every stage is streamed live on the race website

"We’re off to a good start here. That’s important, because we’ve already won time on our competition." – @AnnavdBreggen. Read about #HAT2018 stage one here:https://t.co/w4Gsy4DXDy pic.twitter.com/iqtWQqrWub

— Boels-Dolmans (@boelsdolmansct) April 4, 2018

All the jerseys on the podium. Yellow for race leader, green for points competition, red for most aggressive rider, orange for sprint classification, white for best young rider, blue for best club rider (see below)

🚴‍♀️The podium of stage 1 #HAT18
Yellow @AnnavdBreggen
Green @ChantalBlaak
Red @kirsten_wild
Orange @LisaBrennauer
White Lisa Klein
Blue @amber_hulst pic.twitter.com/TOQz5vR3Te

— Healthy Ageing Tour (@Healthyageingtr) April 4, 2018

Dutch team SwaboLadies NL had their eyes set on the blue jersey for best club rider and Amber van der Hulst brought it home.

Best description of a time trial effort…

View this post on Instagram

Breathe in, 8k push, breathe out.. something like that🤫 //📸@gwarrink • • • • • #ttfun #ttday #ttbike #storckbikes #cycling #cyclinglife #bike #lifeofacyclist #cyclist #sportful #hedwheels #cyclingpics #cyclingphotos #bontcycling #bliz #blizeyewear #lookcycle #poweredby4iiii #nortec

A post shared by Christina Siggaard (@christinasiggaard) on Apr 5, 2018 at 2:43am PDT

Full results at Cycling News

Race Website Race Twitter #HAT18

Itzulia Basque Country Stage 3: Bermeo to Valdegovía, 184.8km

Jay McCarthy (BORA-hansgrohe) pounced in the final metres of scrappy bunch sprint finish to grab his second victory of 2018. UAE Emirates’ neo-pro Alexandr Riabushenko got up for second with Michal Kwiatkowski (Sky) easing in to take third. There was no change on GC, Julian Alaphilippe (Quick-Step Floors) still holds an 8sec advantage.

Video…

Watch #LastKm of in Valdegovía/Gaubea:@JayMcCarthy1 (@BORAhansgrohe) wins 3rd stage of #Itzulia. pic.twitter.com/N4qTyxCqPF

— Brain on Wheels 🚲 (@BrainOnWheels) April 4, 2018

🇪🇸 #Itzulia
He did it!!! @JayMcCarthy1 won stage 3 pic.twitter.com/tUMgU06NCY

— BORA – hansgrohe (@BORAhansgrohe) April 4, 2018

The eight man break-of-the-day included Thomas de Gendt (Lotto-Soudal) who captured the king of mountains jersey – what ever else?Last man standing from the original break was Chris Juul Jensen (Mitchelton-Scott) who was only reeled in with 2.5km to go after being joined by Sky duo Kwiatkowski and David De La Cruz.

REPORT: “I was surprised that I had enough in the tank to follow De la Cruz, and with only 10kilometres to go we made the most of our chances." – Chris Juul-Jensen after a long day out in the breakaway on the 3rd stage in #Itzulia @ehitzulia https://t.co/u6BOuhusTZ

— Mitchelton-SCOTT (@MitcheltonSCOTT) April 4, 2018

It’s always special to ride in your home race…

A small guided tour from @OmarFraile for the children from his school. #itzulia #AstanaProTeam pic.twitter.com/tyEROlg4u3

— Astana Pro Team (@AstanaTeam) April 3, 2018

.@IgorAntonH has stopped his race to hug his daughter 😍 @TeamDiData #itzulia2018 #Itzulia 📸 @PhotoGomezSport pic.twitter.com/Uf5MKIQWuM

— Itzulia Basque Country (@ehitzulia) April 4, 2018

Full race report at Cycling News

Race Website Race Twitter #itzulia

Header image: Fabio Jakobsen – Tim de Waele/Getty Images