Trek-Segafredo Team (Italy) - Press Release: He was considered an outsider for victory. But he had a plan. He waited. For 297 kilometers, in fact. And then he jumped.

Jasper Stuyven timed his winning move perfectly, powering away from a group of favorites and fast finishers at the bottom of the Poggio. The favorites hesitated, eyeing each other out of the race, while Stuyven powered away to the biggest win of his career. It was a gutsy, beautiful move.

“I just knew I had to try, all or nothing. I prefer to do this than gamble for the sprint and finish in 5th or 10th place, so I prefer to go all-in. Most of the time it’s nothing; sometimes it’s all, and today it was all. It’s incredible. I don’t realize [what I’ve done] yet. I am just incredibly happy,” said Stuyven.

One rider managed to bridge to his wheel from the group. When Soren Kragh Andersen (Team DSM) came across, it actually helped Stuyven.

“In the last kilometer, I saw Soren was coming so I tried to recover a little bit before the chicane,” explained Stuyven. “That gave me 300 meters to recover a little bit and that was necessary. I was hoping he would pull through, and he did.”

With the group in a full-on desperate sprint behind him, Stuyven gave everything he had. “And then I started the sprint,” continued Stuyven. “I had nothing left in the legs, but it was enough.”