That's not the assertion at all.

The assertion is that if you have the fitness to generate the 400-500 watts necessary to hold a field off, then you can generate that same 400-500 watts in the middle of the field to get yourself into a position to sprint.

Even if that sprint ends up being a piddly, slow-twitch generated 900 watts, throwing that out with 200m from 2nd wheel will still likely get you in the top 5.