Cycling: Kasper Asgreen cruises to E3 Saxo Bank Classic win as Deceuninck-QuickStep claim one-two
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Published 26/03/2021 at 17:01 GMT
Kasper Asgreen won the E3 Saxo Bank Classic after leading the peloton for much of the race, with his Deceuninck-QuickStep colleagues playing a wonderful supporting role in keeping the likes of Wout van Aert and Mathieu van der Poel quiet behind him. It was his team-mate Florian Senechal who finished second.
Danish Kasper Asgreen of Deceuninck - Quick-Step celebrates as he crosses the finish line to win the 'E3 Saxo Bank Classic' cycling race, 203,9km from and to Harelbeke, Friday 26 March 2021.
Image credit: Getty Images
Kasper Asgreen and his Deceuninck-QuickStep team-mates produced a fine finish to claim a one-two for the outfit in the E3 Saxo Bank Classic.
The day started with controversy as Bora-Hansgrohe were forced to pull out at the 11th hour due to a positive Covid-19 test.
In the absence of the likes of Daniel Oss and Nils Politt, It was the QuickStep riders who stole the show, with Asgreen jumping out in front with around 70km to go and his team-mates blocking off the likes of Wout van Aert (Jumbo-Visma) and Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Fenix).
In the end it was Asgreen's team-mate Florian Senechal who claimed second, with Van der Poel completing the podium.
"There was a little bit of cross-head wind," the Dane said of his thrilling attack in the final stages.
"I knew after the effort I did today, I had to get away alone if I still wanted to try to win the race. So it was all or nothing at that point.
I don't know if I surprised them but I tried to put some distance between them and myself so I could get a gap before they could react.
"I don't know if that made a difference. Everybody had a hard day and everybody was a little bit sore. It was a hard race.
"I felt good out there, I felt good in the last weeks. I was really motivated today to go out and create a hard race. That's where I have my biggest strength.
"And I was not afraid to open up the race early but to go solo for that long was not the plan. But in the end, when you're off the front, you just have to put your head down and make it count.
"I have an amazing team here, everybody was so strong. I could hear them cheering for me behind and I could hear how well they were blocking the other guys. So a huge thanks to the guys, this was really amazing team work."
| Position | Name | Team | Time |
| 1 | Kasper Asgreen | Deceuninck-QuickStep | 4:42:37 |
| 2 | Florian Senechal | Deceuninck-QuickStep | 0:00:32 |
| 3 | Mathieu van der Poel | Alpecin-Fenix | |
| 4 | Oliver Naesen | AG2R Citroen Team | |
| 5 | Zdenek Stybar | Deceuninck-QuickStep | |
| 6 | Greg van Avermaet | AG2R Citroen Team | |
| 7 | Dylan van Baarle | Ineos Grenadiers | |
| 8 | Markus Hoelgaard | Uno-X Pro Cycling | 0:01:28 |
| 9 | Gianni Vermeesch | Alpecin-Fenix | 0:01:30 |
| 10 | Marco Haller | Bahrain Victorious |
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