'It is one of the victories that hurt the most' – Mathieu van der Poel wins third successive E3 Saxo Classic after thrilling finish

Mathieu van der Poel won a third successive E3 Saxo Classic after a thrilling finish in which it looked like the Dutchman would be caught.

The Alpecin-Premier Tech rider escaped with 45km to go on Friday, and might have cruised to the finish, but a strong group of four were metres away from him in the finale.

Despite this, a feint and surge from Van der Poel delivered a famous victory in Harelbeke. Per Strand Hagenes (Visma-Lease a Bike) won the sprint for second, with Florian Vermeersch (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) in third.

It seemed to be an opportunity thrown away by the quartet behind, which also included Stan Dewulf (Decathlon CMA CGM) and Jonas Abrahamsen (Uno-X Mobility).

"At 5 kilometres from the finish, I ran out of steam," Van der Poel explained at the finish, after catching his breath. "At one point, I didn't have much faith in it anymore."

"I just kept riding my wattages. At a good kilometre, I thought they were coming back, but I knew I couldn't sprint anymore. I rode as hard as possible while seated, and it turned out to be just enough."

"On the Boigneberg, it was more about thinning out the group, but I ended up alone," he explained of his attack. "The stretch from there to the Paterberg was full headwind, and then I felt it was going to be a tough effort.

"At first, I still had a reasonably good feeling about it, but I know how difficult that course is to ride alone. I thought I wasn't going to be able to hold on; at 5 kilometers, I was done. In the end, I made it, but it cost blood, sweat, and tears."

"It is one of the victories that hurt the most," Van der Poel added.

How it happened

After leaving Harelbeke, the breakaway took a long time to be fully established, with Bastien Tronchon (Groupama-FDJ), Nickolas Zukowsky (Pinarello Q36.5), Michiel Lambrecht (Flanders-Baloise), Stan Dewulf (Decathlon CMA CGM), Luke Durbridge (Jayco-AlUla) and Sven Erik Bystrøm (Uno-X Mobility) heading up the road.

These six built an advantage of over three minutes over the peloton, although for a long time there was a second group between the pair, which was Henri-François Renard-Haquin (Picnic PostNL), Sean Flynn (Picnic PostNL) and Vojtěch Kmínek (Burgos Burpellet BH). However, the trio never looked like catching those up the road.

The first big move came at 94km to go, on the Karnemelkbeekstraat, when a group of seven, including Timo Kielich (Visma-Lease a Bike) and Daan Hoole (Decathlon CMA CGM). They soon caught Renard-Haquin, Flynn and Kmínek, and passed them.

On the Taaienberg, with around 70km to go, Tim Van Dijke (Red Bull-Bora-hansgrohe) attacked, followed by Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Premier Tech), the defending champion.

At this point, there were still two groups on the road in front of the pair, before Van der Poel went solo with around 45km to go

Few would be forgiven for thinking that this was race over, with the rider who won the last two editions out in front, but a group including DeWulf, Per Strand Hagenes (Visma-Lease a Bike), Florian Vermeersch (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) and Jonas Abrahamsen (Uno-X Mobility) started to reel the former world champion in. A time gap which was over a minute was reduced to 30 seconds with under 15km to go, and then close to 10 seconds with under 5km to go.

However, despite practically being on Van der Poel’s wheel just under the kilometre to go banner, the Dutchman surged again, as the group behind started to play games over who would do the final pull to catch him.