Schoten  (Belgian) - wednesday 8 april 2026 - The fastest sprinter in the world is back! In just his second day of racing this season, Tim Merlier powered to a dominant victory in Scheldeprijs, netting Soudal Quick-Step’s fifth success of the year after a crash-marred finale and a hectic bunch sprint. Having returned to racing from injury less than three weeks ago, Tim entered the 114th edition of Scheldeprijs with the clear ambition of fighting for a good result but still uncertain on how his legs would react after 200 kilometers, but in the end, he made it look incredibly easy. Despite being boxed in inside the final kilometer, the 33-year-old found the space to unleash his phenomenal sprint from the distance and win by several bike lengths.
“It feels really good, especially after the problems I had in the winter. I wasn’t on my best day, and on the final lap there was also that crash which I was lucky to avoid thanks to my cyclo-cross skills. At that moment, I thought there was nothing left anymore in the legs and that the explosion was gone. In the sprint, I got boxed in for a moment but found some space and decided to go, despite being 250 meters from the line.”
“Three victories in Scheldeprijs, I guess that’s not too bad. There were a lot of question marks for me before the start, that’s why this victory gives me a lot of confidence for the next races”, added Tim, only the second rider in history to win Scheldeprijs in three consecutive years.

RESULTS
1° Tim Merlier (Soudal Quick-Step)
km 205,200 in 4h25’01” averege speed 46.457 km/h
2° Pavel Bittner (Team Picnic Postnl)
3° Emilien Jeannière (Totalenergies)
4° Dušan Rajović (Solution Tech Nippo Rali)
5° Žak Eržen (Bahrain Victorious)
6° Hugo Hofstetter (Nsn Cycling Team)
7° David Dekker (Beat Cc P/B Saxo)
8° Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Premier Tech)
9° Steffen De Schuyteneer (Lotto Intermarché)
10° Tom Crabbe (Team Flanders Baloise)