Lewis Bower is finding his form again and moving back towards the front positions! Just a few days after securing a top-20 finish at the Kampioenschap van Vlaanderen, the young New Zealander came close to breaking into the top 10 again this Wednesday, still on Belgian soil, at the Omloop van het Houtland. After a tricky final, he eventually came away with an encouraging 11th place.
Another day of racing in Belgium, and another sprint on the cards. With almost no elevation gain between Zedelgem and Lichtervelde on Wednesday, a mass sprint after 190 kilometres seemed inevitable. “We didn’t have a top-level sprinter at the start, but with Johan and Enzo, we had two very strong breakaway riders,” explained William Green. “We thought this could be an opportunity for them, but it’s always difficult to get two riders into a breakaway. In the end, only Johan made it up the road with three other riders, including riders of Continental teams. It wasn’t a particularly promising breakaway, so given the situation, I told Johan to come back to the peloton after twenty kilometres. From that point on, we focused fully on the sprint.” After 80 kilometres, the peloton entered the final circuit, which had to be completed nine times, and the breakaway was caught quite early. “There was much less wind on the circuit this year, so things were fairly calm and easy in the peloton for a while,” William continued. “However, once the breakaway had been caught, there were numerous attacks, which made the race more nervous. There were crashes, and unfortunately Enzo was caught up in one of them, but he managed to get back on.”
“It’s positive for Lewis” – William Green
The riders of the day’s second breakaway were finally reeled in with ten kilometres to go, and the sprint gradually began to take shape. “The plan was to support Lewis in the finale while allowing Axel to do his own sprint,” William explained. “This was Lewis’s first opportunity in a very long time. The plan was to move up on the left with six kilometres to go, it was quite blocked. Lewis may have been a little impatient and nervous, and he moved up on the right with Olivier, while unfortunately the rest of the team remained further back and never managed to join them. We lacked a bit of cohesion.” Riding behind his Breton teammate, Lewis Bower managed to stay near the front of the peloton from three to six kilometres from the finish, before the pace really began to increase. The 21-year-old Kiwi dropped back a bit at that point, but then put in a huge effort just before the flamme rouge to move back up to third position in the peloton. “He positioned himself perfectly to approach the decisive corner in a good way,” William said. “With 500 metres to go, he was still in third position! I think that effort nevertheless cost him something in the sprint, and he is still missing a little something in the final 500 metres, just as was the case at the Kampioenschap van Vlaanderen.”
Up against a group of fresher sprinters who came with speed from the back, Lewis Bower still dug deep to secure the best possible result. On the finish line, that translated into a solid 11th place. “He has come a very long way from two months ago,” William said. “It started in Fourmies, where he spent a long time riding at the front of the peloton, and then he had the opportunity to sprint at the Kampioenschap van Vlaanderen and finished in the top-20. Today, he progressed again and just missed out on the top 10. He went through a fairly difficult period for a long time, but he is finally finding his speed again. Now he just needs to find cohesion with the team in order to do even better. He feels better on the bike, which is positive, and we need to keep working with him.”
