Jens Verbrugghe continued his runs of wins in 2026, sprinting to victory on home soil on stage 2 of Flanders Tomorrow Tour.
The 21-year-old Belgian, who will step up to the WorldTour team from NSN Development Team in 2027, added to his two stage wins at the Volta ao Alentejo in March.
After illness plagued some of Verbrugghe’s teammates, the team was motivated to bounce back with a good result, and initiated a late move that would set Verbrugghe up in the sprint.
Verbrugghe dedicated his victory to his teammate Fin Tarling.
He says: “I said I wanted to win a race for Fin, so there was a lot of emotions in my head after the line. To take a win for him was a really nice moment.
“The race didn’t start perfectly yesterday – I lost everything on the GC because of my crash, and that was my goal for the race.
“I was really disappointed, but straight away last night Tim [Elverson, Devo Team Manager] said ‘now that you are far down on GC, we can try and win a stage’. As I was not that far down on GC, we thought they might not let me move, so we talked about a late move.
“Two guys rode away, they had a 25-second lead, and the bunch was looking at each other, so I went to chase. I did it quickly and I realised my legs were not that bad. We had 18km to go and we rode full to try and stay in front.”
“I could play a bit in the last KM because the gap was still 20 seconds. I knew I had confidence in my sprint, I knew I was the fastest in the group.
“To win in Belgium, after everything that happened with the team, it means a lot to me.“