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Steels sprints to second Ghent-Wevelgem victory

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Posted: Wednesday April 07, 1999 03:19 PM

Tom Steels' win was a bright spot in a bad week for the Mapei team. Alex Livesey/Allsport

WEVELGEM, Belgium (Reuters) -- Belgian favorite Tom Steels easily outsprinted a group of 14 riders to win the Ghent-Wevelgem race on Wednesday.

Steels, of the Mapei-Quick Step team, pulled ahead in the closing 100 meters of the 210-kilometer race to finish several bike lengths clear of Poland's Zbigniew Spruch of the Lampre outfit.

TVM rider Tristan Hoffman of the Netherlands was third.

"Spruch didn't go all out so I had to get past...I saw an opening on the right between him and the safety barriers and squeezed through," said Steels, winner of the event in 1996.

He paid tribute to Mapei teammates Johan Museeuw and Wilfried Peeters for preventing any breakaway attempts by maintaining a fierce pace in the final kilometers.

The win was a timely boost for the Mapei team who suffered the indignity of being taken out of the De Panne three-day race last week and questioned by police over the discovery of amphetamines in a package sent from their hotel.

 

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