Charlotte Cool and her dsm-firmenich PostNL teammates had high expectations for the classic Brugge-De Panne and were eager to follow up on Pfeiffer Georgi's solo victory. But the team ran out in the final and Cool finished in second place.

As SD Worx-Protime withdrew from the race due to injury, their main rivals were Lidl-Trek and Elisa Balsamo. But in the end, Cool finished just behind Balsamo in the bunch sprint, but despite the excellent teamwork that earned him pole position, he entered the finishing straight. 

The Dutch sprinter was understandably silent about her performance in a post-race interview. "Of course, I'm disappointed. We will not come to 2nd place, but someone was fast today. The feeling was actually good, but we just missed a little bit in the final," she said.

The team took charge of the race in the final as nienke Vinke and Abi Smith chased hard to bring back the late attacker Nina Buijsman (FDJ-Suez). Smith and Daniele Hengefeld then took turns putting the team in front of the Peloton.

At 3.2 km to go, just as Smith finished his last turn, Christina Schweinberger (Fenix-Deceuninck) made the last solo move through the right turn, and Hengeveld had to jump after Austria to close the gap. 

This sacrificed some of her power, and as a result, Hengeveld was no longer able to keep the team's sprint train at the forefront, but gave shelter to her teammates and continued to ride near the front of the Peloton.

The 21-year-old went through a roundabout and returned to the main road 1.9 km away from the finish. Next was Franziska Koch, who brought the train back to the front and finished with a 600-meter straight through the corner. Koch got up on her pedal to push the pace even higher and was eventually handed over to Rachele Barbieri at 400 meters to go.

In a notable departure from the team's usual focus on young talent, the 27-year-old moved to the team ahead of the 2024 season. Barbieri is a successful sprinter in her own right, and as the sprinter explained to Cyclingnews earlier this month, specifically as the last rider ahead of Cool

Barbieri gave everything to lead Cool, and Balsamo jumped off Cool's rear wheels and hit Barbieri's slip. He started the sprint with a sign of 225 meters before going to win the race by speeding at 100 meters past the cool using the stream.

Considering everything, the team made no obvious mistakes. Perhaps it would be better for Barbieri to start the lead-out a little earlier and give him time to speed up and make it harder for Balsamo to come from behind, but the decision in the sprint will be made within seconds.The entire 600-meter straight was covered in just 37 seconds.

The hard truth that Cool wasn't shy to admit in her comments is that someone else was simply quick today.