There are more important things than the race for Lars van der Haar: "Told Thibau beforehand"

The winner of the Koppenberg had something to defend due to his leading position in the regularity classification, but according to him, he wasn't too focused on that. "As I said beforehand, I didn't feel good enough to compete for the win. I wasn't bad, of course, but I saw a couple of good opportunities to support Thibau."

"I didn't feel completely great before the race, and my mind wasn't fully on the race, so I told Thibau beforehand that, if opportunities arise, I'll let a gap open. I did that twice, and the second time it worked," Van der Haar said. "The first time might have been a bit too early for Thibau, but the second time, when he broke away with Laurens, I did it again, and that eventually secured Thibau the victory."

"We do it for each other. Thibau isn’t competing for the overall classification, so it doesn’t matter for the final victory. I made a good move today, but I would have liked to be on the podium nonetheless," said Van der Haar, who saw Alpecin-Deceuninck youngsters Jente Michels and Niels Vandeputte finish second and third. "I already said back in September that they would end up on the podium now and then." In the standings, Van der Haar now has a 25-second lead over Eli Iserbyt, while Nys is 1:13 behind.

"If you were in top form last week, it won’t suddenly be really bad now. It’s about one or two percent that you miss to really compete with the guys at the front," Van der Haar believes. "However, I was surprised by the gap with Michael Vanthourenhout, I think I heard he had chain problems. That might have just cost me the podium. But I think it’s a really beautiful cyclo-cross race, a very nice course with great spectators, so it's awesome."

"You couldn’t make up much ground toward the end here, and the gap with Michael was there. I didn't expect that, even though I was still in the race for the podium. I was aiming for those last two laps, at the moment when Thibau had enough of a lead. But suddenly, there was a gap I had to close, and I couldn’t do it anymore," concluded the ever-articulate Dutchman racing for Baloise Trek Lions, who will also race in Niel, also located in Belgium, on Monday.