Merlier Defies Late Puncture to Win Scheldeprijs Again — Second Straight Sprint Crown for the Wolfpack
Tim Merlier has won the 2026 Scheldeprijs for the second consecutive year, surviving a puncture with just 15 kilometres to race before unleashing a devastating sprint on the Churchilllaan in Schoten to beat Jasper Philipsen and Dylan Groenewegen in the unofficial sprinters' world championship. For the European champion it is a 32nd career WorldTour victory and a stunning answer to the knee injury that wrecked his entire winter.
The 112th edition of the race rolled out of Terneuzen at midday under perfect spring sunshine, the bunch swelled by every fast finisher in the peloton aside from Jonathan Milan, who is being held back by Lidl-Trek for his Paris-Roubaix debut on Sunday. The 205.3-kilometre route across the Belgian-Dutch border has long been considered the purest sprint test on the calendar, and once an early breakaway was reeled in with 30km to race, the only question was which leadout train could deliver the perfect punch.
That question very nearly answered itself in catastrophic fashion when Merlier suffered a rear-wheel puncture with 15km remaining. The defending champion was rolling near the back of the bunch at the moment the tyre let go, and for a few panicked seconds it looked as though the Soudal-Quick-Step leader's race was over. A textbook bike change from neutral service got him moving again within seconds, and a chain of teammates dragged him back into contact just as the bunch hit the technical run-in to Schoten with 6km left.
From there it became a question of nerve. Alpecin-Deceuninck took the front with two kilometres to go, and Bert Van Lerberghe — Philipsen's long-time leadout man — produced a savage final acceleration that strung the bunch out into a single line. Merlier, having been swept right to the back only minutes earlier, surfed up the inside in a matter of seconds and glued himself to Van Lerberghe's wheel, an instinctive piece of positioning that decided the race before the sprint even opened.
With 200 metres to go Merlier launched on the left side of the road and never looked like being caught. Philipsen, jumping off Van Lerberghe's wheel, had no answer to the European champion's raw speed, and the Alpecin sprinter had to settle for a runner-up spot for the third year running at his home Classic. Groenewegen took third for Jayco-AlUla, with Cees Bol fourth and Hugo Hofstetter rounding out the top five — both Astana and Israel-Premier Tech sprinting for the minor placings as the WorldTour heavyweights monopolised the podium.
"Honestly, when I punctured I thought my day was finished," Merlier admitted afterwards. "The team rode unbelievably to bring me back. I just had to trust them and trust the legs, and in the final I was lucky to find Bert's wheel at exactly the right moment. To win this race twice in a row, after how this winter went for me — it means a lot." Soudal sport director Tom Steels called it "one of the best team performances of the year so far," and praised the support work of Van Lerberghe's opposite number, Iljo Keisse-trained Bert De Backer.
For Philipsen, the second place is a familiar and bittersweet result. The Alpecin sprinter has now finished runner-up to Merlier in three of the last four Scheldeprijs editions, but his focus is on Sunday and Paris-Roubaix, where he confessed earlier in the week that he gets "emotional thinking about" the Hell of the North. His emotional pre-Roubaix admission took on extra weight in the post-race mixed zone — the legs are clearly there, but the cobblestones, not the Churchilllaan, are now everything.
The result also serves as a final dress rehearsal for the leadout trains that will spend Sunday surviving rather than sprinting. Soudal-Quick-Step head into Paris-Roubaix as unapologetic cobbled specialists for the first time in years, with Dylan van Baarle and Jasper Stuyven leading their first cobbled Wolfpack since the Boonen era. If Wednesday's sharpness in Schoten is anything to go by, the Belgian squad will be flying in northern France in four days' time.