Sunday afternoon, winner Fabio Jacobsen answered the usual post-race questions about team tactics, hills, and the finish sprint in the press room at the Kuhne Brussel Kuhne.

After a lengthy press conference, the Dutchman put down the microphone and turned to leave, but picked it up again and spoke to the audience without prompting.

"My heart and prayers are with the people of Ukraine and the eastern part of Europe. Let us pray that there will be no further escalation and that peace will prevail."

"Here 25-year-old men are fighting for victory on motorcycles, and over there 25-year-old men like me are fighting for our freedom and our lives. Over there they are unhappy, and over here they are enjoying this. But my heart is over there, so I can keep things in perspective."

It was a serious and thought-provoking way to end a day in which Ukrainian Mark Padun dedicated his Gran Camino stage win to his fellow countrymen. The comment highlighted the maturity of the Quick-Step Alphavinir sprinter.

Of course, he has fully recovered from the numerous injuries he sustained in Poland a year and a half ago. The "big, big question" posed to him at the post-race press conference centered on how the team could fully rely on him in his recovery.

"I think pressure comes with top sports, especially sprinters," Jacobsen replied. 'The whole team works for you and relies on you. That's for sure."

"Last year at the Vuelta, the bonus was gone. We were going to win the sprint. The Vuelta riders said to me, 'We think you are one of the fastest riders in the peloton, so we will work full out for you and try to win.'

"It was a normal winter. I trained a lot with the guys and ran a lot of sprints, so I could feel that I was getting back to my pre-collapse level. I'm grateful for that. It wasn't easy to get here, but at least now I feel like a normal pro rider again."

With his success in Kuhne, Jacobsen now has five wins in 2022, more than anyone else in the peloton.

Today, he can claim to be the fastest man in the peloton. However, he has yet to compare himself with the top sprinters, including two-time UAE Tour stage winner Jasper Philipsen.

"I feel good. I like being the fastest. I still like speed. God gave me fast legs.

"I think I'm always the fastest one day. I'm probably in the top five sprinters and probably the fastest today, and I haven't been able to compare myself with the UAE guys yet, but I want to and I'm looking forward to it. So I think today I was the fastest in the world before the start."

Along with the Tour de France and Suheldepri, which he has won twice before, Milan-San Remo is one of the traditional reference points for the best sprinters in the peloton. Jacobsen has already said that the race is not in his plans for this season, but he said he would like to try on Sunday.

"I will have to talk about it with the team management. Certainly Milan - San Remo is a dream, but it might be too early in the year. I'm going to do Paris-Nice and see what happens after that, but I'm in good shape and I feel good. 0]

The challenge at La Classicoma would be the hills, especially the poggio. But in Coulée, Jacobsen handled the challenges thrown in his path with aplomb, from the usual cobbled Flemish bergs to the newly added Walloon hills. He ends far from the Rhine, but still, he can only run what is in front of him.

"I was in a good position because I knew I had a teammate who could get me into the first group," Jacobsen said. But I knew that if I started around 30th, I could pass everybody."

"Then I realized I had the legs. So I never got into trouble, but I was always within reach of the first group, and I could easily get into the second group. I wouldn't say it was easy, because I could feel my legs burning, but I wouldn't say it was easy because I never got dropped from the back.

Eventually - at the very end - it came down to a group sprint, but only briefly. Christophe Laporte, Taco van der Hoorn, and Honatan Narvaez caught up with Jacobsen and his sprint rivals just short of the finish line.

Jacobsen said that while his calculations may not have been accurate, there was a 50-50 chance that the peloton would catch up.

"For the last 10 kilometers, you just have to focus on sprinting, and if it's for fourth place, you sprint for fourth place. But if you're 10 seconds behind, you know the guys in front of you want to win, so you'll probably see each other a little bit." That way we can always catch them from behind." But if we jump into their slipstream, we can go even faster. I think that's how I kept Ewan in second place and had a chance to finish first"

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This victory came over the leader of Quick Step's great rival, Lotto Soudal, Caleb Yuan.

It came a day after Quick-Step Alphavinir finished an unremarkable ninth in the Omloop Het Newsblad. Team boss Patrick Lefebvre, a man of thoughtful opinions and a calm disposition, had spoken motivational words to the team in the West Vlaams dialect on Saturday night, Jacobsen revealed.

"I don't speak the dialect," he laughed. 'If he starts talking and it's not in the normal happy nice way, ...... This is a top sport, and you have to perform. But it worked."