Scheldeprijs 2025

April 9, 2025 There are a few races on the calendar that claim to be the Sprinter's World Championships but Scheldeprijs is the original one. The list of winners contains all of the biggest sprint names in history with very few exceptions. The race starts in Terneuzen in the Netherlands and heads North and East through the islands of Zeeland before coming back South into Belgium to complete three full laps of a 16.9KM circuit around Schoten. The sun was out at the start but so was the wind. It battered the peloton through Zeeland which split the bunch on numerous occasions. A group got away early but it was brought back. Baptiste Veistroffer of Lotto, Tuur Dens of Flanders Baloise, Cériel Desal of Wagner-Bazin WB, and Tijmen Eising of BEAT Cycling broke away later down the road and, with 72KM to go, they had just 40 seconds on the peloton. Soudal Quickstep were engaged in the chase for European Champion Tim Merlier with Ayco Bastiaens doing the work. The riders were a bit more sheltered from the wind on the circuit which allowed the break to extend their gap to 90 seconds when they crossed the finish line for three laps to go. The chase continued through 2 laps to go with more teams coming to the front for position including Q36.5, Lidl-Trek, TotalEnergies, and Unibet-Tietema Rockets. The pace really picked up on the back half of the lap along the canal. Riders were getting spit out the back of the bunch and the break was down to just Veistroffer and Desal. Veistroffer was caught as they heard the bell for one lap to go with Desal dangling off the front. With 12KM to go, a Soudal Quickstep rider who was in second position in the peloton, looked left and drifted right. He crossed wheels with the rider ahead and came down, causing a mass pile up in the bunch. Riders went into the ditch on either side of the road and only about 45 riders made it through to stay in the peloton. Desal was finally caught with 9.5KM to go as Redbull-Bora Hansgrohe took control of the bunch. As terrible as the crash was, it made the final few kilometers much safer than it would otherwise have been. Lidl-Trek took over with 4KM to go along the canal. They still had 5 riders in line with 2.5KM remaining. Resources were limited after the crash but Israel-Premier Tech kept the pace high through 1KM to go. The sprint started with 220M to go by Jasper Philipsen of Alpecin-Deceuninck. Danny van Poppel of Redbull-Bora Hansgrohe was there as well with Tim Merlier on his wheel. Merlier popped out into fresh air with 150M to go and stormed passed the rest. He held off Philipsen to take the victory, his second in a row at Scheldeprijs. Philipsen took second place with Matteo Moschetti of Q36.5 behind in third place.