![\"Biniam](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/biniam-girmay-69d3a2a9ca706.jpg@webp.webp\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
The victory was particularly satisfying for Girmay, who knows the local roads well and had already shown promising form with third place at the Brussels Cycling Classic earlier this month. \u201cI\u2019m super happy to win here in Belgium,\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019ve trained a few times on these roads, I knew the finish a little bit, and it suited me well. I\u2019m happy to finish off the good job.\u201d<\/p>\n
The sprinters were almost denied their opportunity after a determined attack from Rune Herregodts, who remained clear of the peloton inside the final kilometre. The Belgian held out until the closing moments before finally being caught by the charging bunch.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe was super strong,\u201d Girmay said. \u201cWe thought he would come back early. He kept on pushing, but we were lucky we caught him before the last 100 metres. I\u2019m happy to beat him.\u201d<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Girmay already has 3 wins this season<\/p>\n
Building towards the Tour de FranceNSN Cycling Team<\/a> Sports director Sam Bewley<\/a> highlighted the importance of refining the sprint setup ahead of cycling\u2019s biggest race. \u201cThat was a really important win for a few reasons,\u201d Bewley explained.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s the first time we\u2019ve put the whole sprint group together around Bini since the start of the year, and also the first time we\u2019ve integrated Jake into the group. It\u2019s important to come to this race, get the group together, execute sprints, and understand what we can do better ahead of the Tour de France.\u201d<\/p>\n Bewley believes the result provides valuable confidence for both Girmay and the team as they continue their preparations. \u201cObviously, our focus on top of executing is to win. We know Bini likes to win, and to win before the Tour, and when we have all the best sprinters in this race, that brings a confidence boost to everyone. Momentum from this going into the Tour is really important, so we\u2019re on track.\u201d<\/p>\n With several sprint opportunities still to come at the Belgium Tour, NSN will continue fine-tuning its lead-out train, but Wednesday’s victory already offered encouraging signs ahead of Girmay\u2019s return to the Tour de France, especially given the extremely strong field of sprinters present in Belgium (Merlier, Philipsen and Kooij, amongst others).<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The victory was particularly satisfying for Girmay, who knows the local roads well and had already shown…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":22044,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[4],"tags":[12896,7,3099,1682,3101,13605],"class_list":["post-22043","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-belgium","tag-baloise-belgium-tour","tag-belgium","tag-biniam-girmay","tag-cycling","tag-nsn-cycling-team","tag-sam-bewley"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@be\/116769156383831939","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22043","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=22043"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22043\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/22044"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=22043"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=22043"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/be\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=22043"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}