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It’s not often that Mathieu van der Poel leaves you with your jaw on the floor these days, such is the scale of his achievements in this sport, but the Dutchman produced one of his most audacious and mind-boggling exploits on the final stage of the Tour de Luxembourg .
Davide Piganzoli (Visma-Lease a Bike) sewed up the general classification victory but his limelight was well and truly stolen by Van der Poel.
The stage measured 177 kilometres and the Alpecin-Premier Tech rider completed 174 of them on his own at the head of the race, producing one of the longest solo victories cycling has ever seen.
Van der Poel is treating this five-stage race as preparation for next week’s road race at the World Championships, and he was in a world of his own out there on Sunday, attacking just three kilometres in and not seeing another rider until beyond the finish line more than four hours later.
On a hilly route that added up to more than 3,000 metres of elevation gain, Van der Poel opened a lead of more than five minutes, and remarkably held onto it as the stage wore on, eventually crossing the line just over a minute clear of the rest.
“No idea,” Van der Poel said when asked what had just happened. “That was not the plan before the start, but I found myself alone from the start of the race in fact, and I just rode my tempo the whole day.”
Mikkel Honoré (EF Education-EasyPost) crossed the line in second place, having launched a solo counter-attack in the finale, with Pepijn Reinderink (Soudal Quick-Step) bagging the final spot on the day’s podium five seconds behind.
Piganzoli, whose Visma-Lease a Bike team had controlled a bunch that was powerless against Van der Poel’s might, had attacked on the final ramps and finished alongside Reinderink, as well as Lukas Nerurkar (EF Education-EasyPost).
Piganzoli, who claimed the yellow jersey in the race-defining stage 3 and then won the stage 4 time trial, claims the third pro-level general classification title of his young and highly promising career. The two men accompanying him on the final podium were the TotalEnergies pair of Mattéo Vercher and Thomas Gachignard.
But when we look back at the final stage of this Tour de Luxembourg, we’ll think of Van der Poel, who set off almost from the gun without a care in the world. A six-man chase group did soon form, and it got to almost 30 seconds of Van der Poel’s rear wheel, but despite the superior numbers they never made it across.
“At first I thought the chasers would catch up to me, but I just continued to ride at my power and the gap grew out again, so at that point I decided to just go all-out until the finish,” he explained.
Just inside 100km to go, Van der Poel had five minutes over the peloton and had pushed the chasers back to two minutes. With 44km to go, that group was caught, leaving Van der Poel alone in front of a peloton that was in shock and becoming increasingly stretched and thinned-out by the hilly course.
As Van der Poel crossed the finish line for the first time with 23.5km to go to take on the finishing loop, he still had 2:40 in hand. Visma were taking charge of the bunch but more in trying to manage Piganzoli’s race lead, which Van der Poel was far too far down to threaten.
The reduced bunch started attacking each other on the final lap, with Honoré slipping clear into a solo pursuit, but by that point Van der Poel’s win was in the bag, even if there were some nasty late gradients where he understandably showed signs of slowing and suffering.
Piganzoli lit it up inside the final kilometre to make double sure of the overall crown but the day belonged to Mathieu van der Poel.
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Results
Position
Rider (team)
Time
1
Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin – Premier Tech)
4:10:58
2
Mikkel Frølich Honoré (EF Education – EasyPost)
+1:04
3
Pepijn Reinderink (Soudal Quick-Step)
+1:09
4
Davide Piganzoli (Team Visma | Lease a Bike)
,,
5
Lukas Nerurkar (EF Education – EasyPost)
,,
6
Mattéo Vercher (TotalEnergies)
+1:14
7
Søren Kragh Andersen (Lidl – Trek)
,,
8
Thomas Gachignard (TotalEnergies)
,,
9
Antoine L’Hote (Decathlon CMA CGM Team)
+1:18
10
Aurélien Paret-Peintre (Decathlon CMA CGM Team)
,,
Position
Rider (team)
Time
1
Davide Piganzoli (Team Visma | Lease a Bike)
16:22:17
2
Mattéo Vercher (TotalEnergies)
+0:52
3
Thomas Gachignard (TotalEnergies)
+0:54
4
Aurélien Paret-Peintre (Decathlon CMA CGM Team)
+1:03
5
Igor Arrieta (UAE Team Emirates – XRG)
+1:25
6
Søren Kragh Andersen (Team Visma | Lease a Bike)
+2:11
7
Tijmen Graat (Lidl – Trek)
+2:16
8
Sam Oomen (Lidl – Trek)
+2:17
9
Pepijn Reinderink (Soudal Quick-Step)
+2:24
10
Eike Behrens (Team Lotto Kern-Haus Outlet Montabaur)
+2:33