April 21/19 15:43 pm - Mathieu van der Poel Stuns with Amstel Gold Win

Posted by Editoress on 04/21/19
 

Mathieu van der Poel (Corendon - Circus) came from nowhere to sprint to a stunning win at the Amstel Gold Race.

It had looked for most of the final hour of racing as though it would be a straight shootout between Julian Alaphilippe (Deceuninck Quickstep) and Jakob Fuglsang (Astana), but van der Poel put in an unbelievable effort to close the gap with about 1km to go, leading to a chaotic bunch sprint. What made his victory all the more impressive was that van der Poel not only won the sprint, he also led it out, and closed the gap to the leading pair.

In a performance that ranks among the most impressive of the last decade in cycling, the Dutchman did what seemed to be impossible, dashing the hopes of Alaphilippe and Fuglsang who, with five kilometres to go, had seemed certain of victory with a substantial gap to the bunch.

Questions will be asked about the tactics of Deceuninck and Astana to let van der Poel back into the race, but then he has demonstrated an ability to turn adversity into wins recently. His effort began as far out as 5 km from the finish,  pulling six riders who had up to that point been out of contention, right back into the race.

Simon Clarke (EF Education First) was the biggest beneficiary on the van der Poel train, sitting on his wheel all the way to the line for a second place that will rank among his most impressive career results. Fuglsang was visibly furious to come in third, while Alaphilippe and Max Schachmann (BORA-hansgrohe) closed out the top five.

Van der Poel looked strong with about 40 km to go, when he attacked solo, trying to force a selection. As it transpired, this was just a demonstration of the explosive power he was to unleash later.

That early sortie led to the defining move of the race, when Alaphilippe and Fuglsang went clear together a few moments later. The duo worked beautifully together until around three kilometres to go, when Fuglsang, expecting to be the slower in the sprint, started to skip turns - refusing to bring Alaphilippe to the line. It was this hesitation that opened a tiny chink of light, into which the charging van der Poel was able to storm.

Michael Woods (EF Education First) along with Michal Kwiatkowski (Team Sky) and Matteo Trentin (Mitchelton - Scott) formed a chase group going after Alaphilippe and Fuglsang, but Woods was dropped on the Keutenberg with about 28 km to go and would soon drop out.

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