{"id":225842,"date":"2025-06-30T05:35:09","date_gmt":"2025-06-30T05:35:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/225842\/"},"modified":"2025-06-30T05:35:09","modified_gmt":"2025-06-30T05:35:09","slug":"i-wasnt-the-strongest-in-the-race","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/225842\/","title":{"rendered":"\u201cI wasn\u2019t the strongest in the race\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"https:\/\/cyclinguptodate.com\/tim-wellens\" title=\"Tim Wellens\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Tim Wellens<\/a> is the new Belgian national champion after a<br \/>\ngritty solo victory in the 2025 Belgian National Championships Road Race. The<br \/>\nUAE Team Emirates \u2013 XRG rider surprised even himself with the result, capping<br \/>\nwhat he described as the most beautiful victory of his career.The UAE rider crossed the line ahead of <a href=\"https:\/\/cyclinguptodate.com\/remco-evenepoel\" title=\"Remco Evenepoel\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Remco Evenepoel<\/a> and<br \/>\nJasper Philipsen, taking full advantage of hesitation in the chase group to<br \/>\nsecure the national jersey he will now wear at the Tour de France.<\/p>\n<p>&#13;<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI wasn\u2019t the strongest in the race,\u201d Wellens admitted after<br \/>\nthe finish. \u201cI think everyone saw that it was Remco, but that\u2019s why everyone<br \/>\nlooked at him.\u201d Despite not having the best form in the lead-up, he rode a<br \/>\ncanny and opportunistic race to land the biggest one-day win of his career.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI was very relaxed at the start. I didn&#8217;t have good legs<br \/>\nthe last few days, so I started Sunday without expectations,\u201d he explained. \u201cI<br \/>\nwas only sure that I was going to win in the last kilometre. I don&#8217;t think I&#8217;ve<br \/>\never suffered so much.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>While his team is used to riding for Tadej Poga\u010dar on the<br \/>\nbiggest stage, Wellens\u2019 personal moment of glory brought a different kind of<br \/>\nsatisfaction. \u201cEveryone wants to wear the Belgian jersey once and now I get<br \/>\nthat chance,\u201d he said. \u201cLast year we won the Tour with Tadej Poga\u010dar, and there<br \/>\nis little that can compare to that, but maybe this title,\u201d he laughed. \u201cIt is<br \/>\ngreat that I will be able to show the jersey in the biggest race in the world.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Tim Wellens is the new Belgian national champion after a gritty solo victory in the 2025 Belgian National&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":225843,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4104],"tags":[4230,79,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-225842","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-cycling","8":"tag-cycling","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114770694939267659","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225842","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=225842"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/225842\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/225843"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=225842"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=225842"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=225842"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}