Kasper Asgreen surprises Mathieu van der Poel and wins the Tour of Flanders

And fifty meters from the line, Mathieu van der Poel stalls net. Running out of gas. The Dutchman has no more pedaling to give. Annoyed, he sees Kasper Asgreen pluck the victory in the Tour of Flanders.

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Judged on the national 60 in Oudenaarde, the arrival of the “Ronde” does not really offer the most beautiful theater for the outcome of a “classic” cyclist, especially in the absence of any public, closed door requires. But regardless of the packaging, the arrival of this 105e edition is promised to a great posterity.

It will be about rewinding a crazy, intense, hard day (as always in the middle of the cobbled mountains of Flanders) and understanding how the Dane of the Deceuninck – Quick-Step formation was able to tame the outgoing winner, yet given as much more faster than him in the sprint.

Beast to ride, but smart boy, Kasper Asgreen is the man who falls, or rather comes out, at peak this season. On March 26, during the E3 Grand Prix (a mini-Tour of Flanders), he took advantage of his team’s numerical superiority and a directional island to take to the open sea three kilometers from the finish when his competitors (Poel the first) thought his batteries were flat after the long solitary breakaway he had made before.

Asgreen had decided to wait

Sunday, black mask on the face and red jersey of the Danish champion on the back, he detailed his plan after the arrival. “I felt very good in the last kilometers, I decided to give it a try. At the end, I kept Mathieu in front of me, I knew we had a sufficient lead, I wanted to be in his wheel ”, confided the 26-year-old cyclist, already surprising 2e of the “Ronde” in 2019.

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Until the last few meters, however, his strategy seemed daring. With an attack placed 26 kilometers from the finish, Kasper Asgreen trapped his leader, Julian Alaphilippe, wedged in a group of seven riders, but at the same time lost the strength of numbers in which the dominance of the Deceuninck generally lies.

Flanked by Mathieu van der Poel and Wout Van Aert, the Dane then had a good third man header. But there is the theory, the record of service and the form of the day. That of Wout Van Aert (dropped in the third climb of Vieux Quaremont, penultimate difficulty of the day) is average, while Julian Alaphilippe has exploded in mid-flight.

The “VDP” equation still remains to be solved. Insolent of ease in the Quaremont, the leader of the Alpecin-Fenix ​​team is unable to get rid of the Asgreen plaster in the percentages of more than 20% of the Paterberg, the last mount of the day.

Anthony Turgis amazing

This time, no huge hunger pangs like at the 2019 World Championship under the flood of Leeds, when Raymond Poulidor’s grandson forgot grandpa’s basic instructions on feeding during the race.

In October 2020, in the final of the Tour of Flanders, Wout Van Aert regretted having started his sprint too late against Poel. The Dutch champion stood on his pedals 250 meters from the line, took a bike ahead of Asgreen, before appearing surprised by his opponent’s return and surrendered, betrayed by his legs and this self-confidence which sometimes exempts him from thinking.

Twenty-four years after Rolf Sorensen, a Dane removes the Flemish “monument”. “Rolf called me and gave me some advice for the race”, smiled his successor. In 1997, the Rabobank rider deprived Toulouse-based Frédéric Moncassin of what would have been the best victory of his career.

France is still waiting for a successor to Jacky Durand (winner in 1992), but a disappointing Alaphilippe should not make us forget the services of Florian Sénéchal (8e), Christophe Laporte (11e) and especially an amazing Anthony Turgis (9e), who, with a little more lucidity, could have accompanied the duo Asgreen-Poel in the finale.

But the Dutch with Limousin roots is well placed to know that the “Round” only retains the truth of this interminable final straight line of Oudenaarde.