The champ is back! Wout van Aert marked his return to racing in style on Wednesday, sprinting to victory on the opening stage of the Tour of Denmark after a hard-fought day around Aalborg. The Visma\u2013Lease a Bike rider had to skip the Tour de France after an elbow injury became infected following a training crash before the Tour Auvergne-Rh\u00f4ne-Alpes, preventing him from recovering in time. It was a bummer as the form was there; in fact, he even took a stage dub.<\/p>\n
Two Canadians were racing: Pier-Andr\u00e9 C\u00f4t\u00e9 of NSN Cycling and U.S.\/Canadian citizen Ashlin Barry, who races with an American licence and is teammates with Van Aert for the week. Toronto\u2019s Barry normally races on the Conti squad but can ride \u201cup\u201d with the WorldTour squad. It\u2019s his first time riding alongside Van Aert. C\u00f4t\u00e9 had a great race, making the eventual break and finishing fifth.<\/p>\n
Stage 1 of the Tour of Denmark<\/p>\n
The 197.6-km stage looked destined for a bunch sprint early on, but strong winds, narrow roads and three laps of a finishing circuit featuring the short but punchy M\u00f8lleparken climb gradually whittled down the field.<\/p>\n
Visma\u2013Lease a Bike controlled much of the race for its leader, van Aert. With all the typical Danish crosswinds, there was a brief split in the peloton with 75 km left. A crash messed up the field soon after, although the groups eventually came back together as cooperation at the front went south.<\/p>\n
The race exploded again inside the final 15 km. After the last remaining escapee was reeled in, a six-rider move gained a small advantage. The group included Gasp\u00e9, Que.\u2019s C\u00f4t\u00e9<\/a>, Lukas Kubis, Tomas Kopecky, Christophe Laporte, Tim Torn Teutenberg and Henrik Pedersen.<\/p>\n Van Aert bridges<\/p>\n Behind them, Van Aert did what he does and launched a powerful attack on the final time up the short but tough M\u00f8lleparken climb. S\u00f8ren Kragh Andersen dug deep and managed to stay on his wheel and joined the move, too. That gave Visma two riders in the front group.<\/p>\n Laporte delivered Van Aert to the line, and the Belgian held off Kubis in a long sprint to claim his first dub since returning to competition. Henrik Pedersen completed the podium, while C\u00f4t\u00e9 sprinted to the line with the lead group in fifth, 17 seconds ahead of the chasing peloton.<\/p>\n With the win, Van Aert pulled on the blue leader\u2019s jersey. Former national champ C\u00f4t\u00e9 sits fifth overall. There are four stages remaining. Thursday\u2019s second day of racing is from Glyng\u00f8re to Skive for a total of 182.9 km. Glyng\u00f8re is a small town\u2014just 1,300 residents\u2014but has one famous local: none other than Jonas Vingegaard.<\/p>\n