Asgreen outsprints van der Poel to take Tour of Flanders

Kasper Asgreen clinched the Tour of Flanders on Sunday (4 April), the biggest win of his cycling career so far.

The 26-year-old Dane crossed the finish line in Oudenaarde ahead of 2020 winner Mathieu van der Poel, who gave up in the final metres of the 254-km race after initially launching the sprint.

"I felt good in the last kilometres still so I decided to try and trust my sprint," Asgreen told Eurosport after his win.

"Going into the last kilometre I got Mathieu on the front and I heard we still had more than 30 seconds so I decided to stay in the wheel, so I could decide when to go. It was a really hard race. We were both on the limit. It was a question of the margins at the end."

Asgreen, who just over one week ago claimed the E3 Saxo Bank Classic, became the first Danish rider to take the Ronde since Ralf Soerensen in 1997.

Rio 2016 road gold medallist Greg van Avermaet won the sprint for the third place, ahead of Milan-San Remo winner Jasper Stuyven.

The race heated up with just over 50km to go when a group led by pre-race favourites van der Poel, Wout van Aert and Julian Alaphilippe increased the pace and split the peloton, as they caught an eight-man breakaway.

Alaphilippe, Van Aert and Van der Poel remained at the front along with Kasper Asgreen, Marco Haller and Dylan Teuns as they approached the final cobbled bergs of the course.

With the Oude Kwaremont and Paterberg looming, van Aert, van der Poel and Asgreen built a 25-second lead over the chasers. Gent Wevelgem winner van Aert was then dropped, with defending champion van der Poel and Asgreen duelling for the win.

Last October Alaphilippe famously collided with a motorbike in the 2020 edition, but this year's 105th Ronde van Vlaanderen was also marred by several crashes and saw some controversial moments.

Yevgeniy Fedorov and Otto Vergaerde were both disqualified for dangerous riding after just a few kilometres into the race. They were later followed by Michael Schar, who became the first rider to be punished under the new UCI rules on littering.

Reigning European champion Annemiek van Vleuten took a solo win in the women's race, ten years after her first victory.

The 38-year-old Dutch rider, who recently claimed the Dwars door Vlaanderen, finished in front of Germany's Lisa Brennauer and Australia's Grace Brown.

Van Vleuten is the oldest ever winner of the cycling Monument, taking the record from Andrei Tchmil who won the men's edition at age 37 in 2000.