Jinze Joris sprints to victory with an impressive solo effort in the Men’s U17 race
With a final acceleration on the Wolvenberg, Jinze Joris blasted to victory in the Tour of Flanders for Men U17. The Antwerp champion made it ahead of Vic De Smet and Sune De Valck.
The second race of the Men's U17 Top Competition took the riders over a tough 74 km course. On their route: 6 climbs and 7 cobblestone sections. At about 30 km from the finish, three riders took off: Stan Vernaillen, Mauro Keppens and Aksel Decaestecker. Before the start of the final lap, Sune De Valck, Joris Jinze and Arif Rayane had joined the leading group.
24 km from the finish, just before turning onto the Achterberg, the peloton reformed. Joris Jinze took advantage of this moment and attacked again. Mauro Keppens, Emil Siegers, Sune De Valck and Yasu Vervoort, last year's winner and current Limburg champion, jumped off as well. However, they were not given free passage and were quickly caught. Seff Van Kerckhove tried to go solo for a while, but never gained more than 5 seconds.
Jinze Joris had already proved that he had good legs by winning the mountain classification. On the Wolvenberg, the last climb of the day, he put it all on the line with a final acceleration. No one could follow him. In true time trial style - Joris Jinze also became Belgian time trial champion on 1 May - he sprinted to victory in Oudenaarde. Some ten seconds later, Vic De Smet and Sune De Valck sprinted to places two and three, respectively.
View the results here.
