This Sunday, Gerben Thijssen took his first professional win, the seventh of the season for Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert Matériaux, by winning the bunch sprint in the final stage of the Dunkirk Four Day (2.Pro).
After two podium finishes earlier this week, the 23 year old Belgian sprinter rewarded the work of his teammates who, once more, delivered a fantastic job to bring him in a perfect position in the final kilometer.
At the end of this sixth and last stage, Baptiste Planckaert confirms his fifth place in the general classification. French neopro Hugo Page, who finished for the fourth time this week in the top twenty, concludes the week in fourteenth place of the final classification.
Thanks to Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert Matériaux I'm a winner again! This victory means so much to me, after two seasons during which I went through hard times both physically and mentally. Since my arrival here, I feel stronger than ever before and race after race I gain confidence. Because of small errors I didn't manage to win, even though I felt that I had the capabilities to do so. Thanks to the the hours of analyzing our sprints with the sports directors, my training Ioannis Tamouridis and my lead out Boy van Poppel, we managed to create the perfect scenario today. My teammates brought me into a perfect position and I launched my sprint with 300 meter to go. It was far, but I didn't hesitate and nobody managed to come out of my slipstream. I'm very grateful for the confidence I receive from the team and I want to show this real Gerben Thijssen a lot more in the future!
