Mathieu van der Pol (Alpecin-Desseuninck) helped set the pace with a break that started with 88km remaining in the first stage of the Baloise Belgian Tour.

Van der Pol's job of setting up the stage for sprinter Jasper Philipsen was not yet done. He joined the lead group of Alpecin-Desseuninck and supported the sprinter until the last 100 meters.

"Let me say first that it was not my idea to go on the attack 88 km from the finish," van der Pol told the Dutch and Belgian cycling media, including Wielerfritz and HLN. 'Well, it's not hard to convince me. The team wants to make the competition a little more difficult to win early on. Jasper can handle tougher races than other sprinters."

When Philipsen won the first stage of the Baloise Belgian Tour with a sprint win, Van der Pol sat in the back, arms raised in victory for his team, but still finished sixth. He also won the intermediate sprint, the "Golden Kilometer," by eight seconds, putting him in second place overall behind Philipsen.

A stage win and a good overall finish in the 2. ProTour for the team was cause for celebration for van der Poer, who said, "I want to make it count when we start somewhere," but he also had a bigger goal in mind: the July 1 race in Bilbao, Spain The Tour de France Grand Depart is just over two weeks away.

"I noticed that I'm in better shape here than in Hagelahn five days ago," said Van der Pol, who finished 13th in the Dwars door het Hagelahn, his first race back since Paris-Roubaix." It often takes a few races to be really super."

Many of his rivals, including Wout Van Aert (Jumbo Visma), are using the Tour de Suisse as a final tune-up for the Tour de France, and Van der Poel seemed pleased with his choice after the first day of the five-day tour in Belgium He said.

"Days like today are the reason I am here and not in Switzerland," he said. I hope I recover well and have a fascinating race in the other stages to come."

The next stage in the Baloise Belgian Tour is a relatively flat 176km stage from Mellerbeek to Knokke-Heist, with a 15.2km individual time trial on stage 3. The race heads from the finale to Brussels for the 195 km fifth stage.