{"id":195207,"date":"2024-03-14T22:15:51","date_gmt":"2024-03-14T22:15:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/?p=195207"},"modified":"2024-03-14T22:15:51","modified_gmt":"2024-03-14T22:15:51","slug":"2024-looks-like-a-great-year-for-sprinters","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2024\/03\/14\/2024-looks-like-a-great-year-for-sprinters\/","title":{"rendered":"2024 Looks Like a Great Year for Sprinters"},"content":{"rendered":"

Soudal\u2013Quick-Step\u2019s Tim Merlier continued the bright start to his season by winning Wednesday\u2019s sprinter-friendly Nokere Koerse for a third consecutive year. Fabio Jakobsen (DSM-Firmenich-PostNL) finished second and last year\u2019s Tour de France \u0160koda Green Jersey winner, Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck), was third.<\/strong><\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

The 31-year-old Belgian came out on top after a chaotic finish in which, in trying to avoid running into another rider, he bumped into Philipsen\u2019s Alpecin-Deceuninck teammate Jonas Rickaert and set off a mass crash. \u201cMy chain came off for a moment, so it was a bit of a panic,\u201d he said after the race. Once he fixed the problem, he began a long, powerful sprint from the start of the brief final climb,\u00a0 which his rivals could not match. \u201cSuddenly, I got into the slipstream and I saw a gap,\u201d he explained. \u201cI thought I’ll try it from afar like the previous two years and then we’ll see.\u201d<\/p>\n

The win was Merlier\u2019s sixth of the young season after he won two stages at the AlUla Tour and three stages at the UAE Tour. He looks to be in the form of his life and may be strong enough to be a green jersey factor at the coming Grand Tours.<\/p>\n

But he\u2019s not the only sprinter who has enjoyed a great start to the season. Lidl Trek\u2019s 23-year-old sprinter Jonathan Milan has won three stages, including two impressive victories at the recent Tirreno-Adriatico where he won the race\u2019s green jersey over the likes of Milan, Philipsen and Israel\u2013Premier Tech\u2019s Corbin Strong.<\/p>\n

\"Jonathan<\/a>
Jonathan Milan celebrates his win of the final stage during the 2024 Tirreno – Adriatico. \u00a9 Profimedia<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

And then there is 22-year-old Olav Kooij of all-conquering Visma\u2013Lease a Bike who has won the Clasica de Almeria, a stage of the UAE Tour, and two stages at Paris-Nice where he outlasted the veterans Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek), Michael Mathews (Jayco AlUla) and Sam Bennett (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale).<\/p>\n

Everyone this year has focused so much attention on the upcoming Tour de France and its four superstar rivals \u2013 Jonas Vingegaard, Remco Evenepoel, Primo\u017e Rogli\u010d and Tadej Poga\u010dar<\/a> \u2013 that we have overlooked the sudden plethora of sprinters that have muscled their way into prominence, especially with the coming of age of Kooij and Milan. The two showed promise last year \u2013 Kooij won four stages at the Tour of Britain and one at Paris-Nice, while Milan won a stage and the points classification at the Giro d\u2019Italia \u2013 but both seem to have upped their game and look set to fight for more Grand Tour victories this year and perhaps even challenge Philipsen\u2019s Tour de France supremacy.<\/p>\n

On the other hand, Merlier is a veteran who has already won a stage at both the Tour and the Giro but in the form he has so far shown, he seems to have moved up a level and could be prominent in the Grand Tour this year\u00a0 \u2013 but not at the Tour where teammate Philipsen is boss. Philipsen established himself as the premier sprinter on the road by winning six Tour de France stages in 2022 and 2023, and winning the Tour\u2019s \u0160koda Green Jersey last year.<\/a> The 26-year-old Belgian has had a modest start to the season, winning a stage at the Tirreno-Adriatico and finishing third in Wednesday\u2019s Nokere Koerse. But he is probably playing the long game, building himself up to be at his best at the Tour again. And he has the world\u2019s best leadout man in Mathieu van der Poel, so he will be a very formidable opponent when that race comes around.<\/p>\n

Add to these sprinters the prospect of the greatest of them all, Mark Cavendish<\/a> (Astana Qazaqstan), trying again to win his 35th Tour de France stage and finally breaking the record for the most Tour stage wins he now shares with Eddie Merckx \u2013 and you have the recipe for some dramatic Tour de France stage finishes. But after winning a stage at the Tour Colombia, the 38-year-old Briton has had a very rough spring, failing to finish the UAE Tour due to illness, Tirreno-Adriatico \u2013 where he didn\u2019t make a stage time cut \u2013 and the Milano-Torrino, because of a cold.<\/p>\n

Bad things can happen on the road but before he dropped out of those three races, Cavendish never came close to finishing a stage, his 17th place in stage 5 of the UAE Tour representing his best finish outside of South America this year. Let\u2019s hope this is just a momentary setback, and that Cavendish will be in form and part of the Tour de France<\/a> sprints, which could be almost as dramatic as the yellow jersey battle this year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Soudal\u2013Quick-Step\u2019s Tim Merlier continued the bright start to his season by winning Wednesday\u2019s sprinter-friendly Nokere Koerse for a third consecutive […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":99,"featured_media":195208,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[329],"tags":[7684,3891,5436,7142,3559,461,7378,7148,4970],"global-categories":[3366],"class_list":["post-195207","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-road-cycling","tag-2024-tirreno-adriatico","tag-fabio-jakobsen","tag-jasper-philipsen","tag-jonathan-milan","tag-mads-pedersen","tag-mark-cavendish","tag-olav-kooij","tag-soudal-quick-step","tag-tim-merlier","global-categories-cycling"],"yoast_head":"\n2024 Looks Like a Great Year for Sprinters - \u0160koda We Love Cycling<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Soudal\u2013Quick-Step\u2019s Tim Merlier continued the bright start to his season by winning Wednesday\u2019s sprinter-friendly Nokere Koerse for a third consecutive\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2024\/03\/14\/2024-looks-like-a-great-year-for-sprinters\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"2024 Looks Like a Great Year for Sprinters\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Soudal\u2013Quick-Step\u2019s Tim Merlier continued the bright start to his season by winning Wednesday\u2019s sprinter-friendly Nokere Koerse for a third consecutive\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2024\/03\/14\/2024-looks-like-a-great-year-for-sprinters\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"\u0160koda We Love Cycling\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2024-03-14T22:15:51+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/d2p6e6u75xmxt8.cloudfront.net\/2\/2024\/03\/Merlier-Jakobsen-Philipsen-profimedia-0856581900-CVR.webp\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"990\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"660\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/webp\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"tereza\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Siegfried Mortkowitz\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2024\/03\/14\/2024-looks-like-a-great-year-for-sprinters\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2024\/03\/14\/2024-looks-like-a-great-year-for-sprinters\/\",\"name\":\"2024 Looks Like a Great Year for Sprinters - \u0160koda We Love Cycling\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/#website\"},\"primaryImageOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2024\/03\/14\/2024-looks-like-a-great-year-for-sprinters\/#primaryimage\"},\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2024\/03\/14\/2024-looks-like-a-great-year-for-sprinters\/#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/d2p6e6u75xmxt8.cloudfront.net\/2\/2024\/03\/Merlier-Jakobsen-Philipsen-profimedia-0856581900-CVR.webp\",\"datePublished\":\"2024-03-14T22:15:51+00:00\",\"author\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/#\/schema\/person\/50f01ecd18718d2333cf72e823c4f926\"},\"description\":\"Soudal\u2013Quick-Step\u2019s Tim Merlier continued the bright start to his season by winning Wednesday\u2019s sprinter-friendly Nokere Koerse for a third consecutive\",\"breadcrumb\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2024\/03\/14\/2024-looks-like-a-great-year-for-sprinters\/#breadcrumb\"},\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"ReadAction\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2024\/03\/14\/2024-looks-like-a-great-year-for-sprinters\/\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2024\/03\/14\/2024-looks-like-a-great-year-for-sprinters\/#primaryimage\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/d2p6e6u75xmxt8.cloudfront.net\/2\/2024\/03\/Merlier-Jakobsen-Philipsen-profimedia-0856581900-CVR.webp\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/d2p6e6u75xmxt8.cloudfront.net\/2\/2024\/03\/Merlier-Jakobsen-Philipsen-profimedia-0856581900-CVR.webp\",\"width\":990,\"height\":660,\"caption\":\"Nokere Koerse\"},{\"@type\":\"BreadcrumbList\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2024\/03\/14\/2024-looks-like-a-great-year-for-sprinters\/#breadcrumb\",\"itemListElement\":[{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":1,\"name\":\"Home\",\"item\":\"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/\"},{\"@type\":\"ListItem\",\"position\":2,\"name\":\"2024 Looks Like a Great Year for Sprinters\"}]},{\"@type\":\"WebSite\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/#website\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/\",\"name\":\"\u0160koda We Love Cycling\",\"description\":\"\u0160koda We Love Cycling magazine\",\"alternateName\":\"\u0160koda WLC\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"SearchAction\",\"target\":{\"@type\":\"EntryPoint\",\"urlTemplate\":\"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/?s={search_term_string}\"},\"query-input\":{\"@type\":\"PropertyValueSpecification\",\"valueRequired\":true,\"valueName\":\"search_term_string\"}}],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\"},{\"@type\":\"Person\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/#\/schema\/person\/50f01ecd18718d2333cf72e823c4f926\",\"name\":\"tereza\",\"image\":{\"@type\":\"ImageObject\",\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/1f9eb71be33845f0afabce3791bc1c58ecdb0a25c62964987e5dbcf7a20d2ec7?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"contentUrl\":\"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/1f9eb71be33845f0afabce3791bc1c58ecdb0a25c62964987e5dbcf7a20d2ec7?s=96&d=mm&r=g\",\"caption\":\"tereza\"},\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/author\/tereza\/\"}]}<\/script>\n<!-- \/ Yoast SEO Premium plugin. -->","yoast_head_json":{"title":"2024 Looks Like a Great Year for Sprinters - \u0160koda We Love Cycling","description":"Soudal\u2013Quick-Step\u2019s Tim Merlier continued the bright start to his season by winning Wednesday\u2019s sprinter-friendly Nokere Koerse for a third consecutive","robots":{"index":"index","follow":"follow","max-snippet":"max-snippet:-1","max-image-preview":"max-image-preview:large","max-video-preview":"max-video-preview:-1"},"canonical":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2024\/03\/14\/2024-looks-like-a-great-year-for-sprinters\/","og_locale":"en_US","og_type":"article","og_title":"2024 Looks Like a Great Year for Sprinters","og_description":"Soudal\u2013Quick-Step\u2019s Tim Merlier continued the bright start to his season by winning Wednesday\u2019s sprinter-friendly Nokere Koerse for a third consecutive","og_url":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2024\/03\/14\/2024-looks-like-a-great-year-for-sprinters\/","og_site_name":"\u0160koda We Love Cycling","article_published_time":"2024-03-14T22:15:51+00:00","og_image":[{"width":990,"height":660,"url":"https:\/\/d2p6e6u75xmxt8.cloudfront.net\/2\/2024\/03\/Merlier-Jakobsen-Philipsen-profimedia-0856581900-CVR.webp","type":"image\/webp"}],"author":"tereza","twitter_card":"summary_large_image","twitter_misc":{"Written by":"Siegfried Mortkowitz","Est. reading time":"4"},"schema":{"@context":"https:\/\/schema.org","@graph":[{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2024\/03\/14\/2024-looks-like-a-great-year-for-sprinters\/","url":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2024\/03\/14\/2024-looks-like-a-great-year-for-sprinters\/","name":"2024 Looks Like a Great Year for Sprinters - \u0160koda We Love Cycling","isPartOf":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/#website"},"primaryImageOfPage":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2024\/03\/14\/2024-looks-like-a-great-year-for-sprinters\/#primaryimage"},"image":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2024\/03\/14\/2024-looks-like-a-great-year-for-sprinters\/#primaryimage"},"thumbnailUrl":"https:\/\/d2p6e6u75xmxt8.cloudfront.net\/2\/2024\/03\/Merlier-Jakobsen-Philipsen-profimedia-0856581900-CVR.webp","datePublished":"2024-03-14T22:15:51+00:00","author":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/#\/schema\/person\/50f01ecd18718d2333cf72e823c4f926"},"description":"Soudal\u2013Quick-Step\u2019s Tim Merlier continued the bright start to his season by winning Wednesday\u2019s sprinter-friendly Nokere Koerse for a third consecutive","breadcrumb":{"@id":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2024\/03\/14\/2024-looks-like-a-great-year-for-sprinters\/#breadcrumb"},"inLanguage":"en-US","potentialAction":[{"@type":"ReadAction","target":["https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2024\/03\/14\/2024-looks-like-a-great-year-for-sprinters\/"]}]},{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2024\/03\/14\/2024-looks-like-a-great-year-for-sprinters\/#primaryimage","url":"https:\/\/d2p6e6u75xmxt8.cloudfront.net\/2\/2024\/03\/Merlier-Jakobsen-Philipsen-profimedia-0856581900-CVR.webp","contentUrl":"https:\/\/d2p6e6u75xmxt8.cloudfront.net\/2\/2024\/03\/Merlier-Jakobsen-Philipsen-profimedia-0856581900-CVR.webp","width":990,"height":660,"caption":"Nokere Koerse"},{"@type":"BreadcrumbList","@id":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/2024\/03\/14\/2024-looks-like-a-great-year-for-sprinters\/#breadcrumb","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"name":"Home","item":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/"},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"name":"2024 Looks Like a Great Year for Sprinters"}]},{"@type":"WebSite","@id":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/#website","url":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/","name":"\u0160koda We Love Cycling","description":"\u0160koda We Love Cycling magazine","alternateName":"\u0160koda WLC","potentialAction":[{"@type":"SearchAction","target":{"@type":"EntryPoint","urlTemplate":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/?s={search_term_string}"},"query-input":{"@type":"PropertyValueSpecification","valueRequired":true,"valueName":"search_term_string"}}],"inLanguage":"en-US"},{"@type":"Person","@id":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/#\/schema\/person\/50f01ecd18718d2333cf72e823c4f926","name":"tereza","image":{"@type":"ImageObject","inLanguage":"en-US","@id":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/#\/schema\/person\/image\/","url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/1f9eb71be33845f0afabce3791bc1c58ecdb0a25c62964987e5dbcf7a20d2ec7?s=96&d=mm&r=g","contentUrl":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/1f9eb71be33845f0afabce3791bc1c58ecdb0a25c62964987e5dbcf7a20d2ec7?s=96&d=mm&r=g","caption":"tereza"},"url":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/author\/tereza\/"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195207","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/99"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=195207"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195207\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":195211,"href":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/195207\/revisions\/195211"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/195208"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=195207"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=195207"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=195207"},{"taxonomy":"global-categories","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.welovecycling.com\/wide\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/global-categories?post=195207"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}