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World Champion Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck) secured his first victory since winning Paris-Roubaix in April on stage 1 at the Tour de Luxembourg.
Van der Poel started his sprint with roughly 300 metres to go on the uphill finish and crossed the line ahead of runner-up Christophe Laporte (Visma-Lease a Bike) and third-placed Andreas Kron (Lotto Dstny) in Luxembourg.
Van der Poel now leads the overall classification into the 155km stage 2 race from Junglinster to Schifflange on Thursday.
His performance bodes well for his prospects in defending his road race world title at the upcoming UCI Road World Championships at the end of the month in Zurich.
“It’s always nice to win the first stage and it’s been a while since I could raise my hands,” Van der Poel said. “I enjoyed today. It was a beautiful stage and I look forward to the next stages of the race.”
How it Unfolded
The peloton tackled 158km during the opening stage of the Tour de Luxembourg which included four categorised climbs: Montee de Niklosbierg (4.6% at 6.1%), Cote de Bourscheid (3.4km at 7%), Cote de Eschdorf (2.5km at 8.6%) and the final climb over the Cote de Stafelter (1.8km %8.6%) located 10km from the finish line.
In the first 30km of the stage, a four-rider breakaway set off, including Pepijn Reinderink (Soudal-QuickStep), Vincent Van Hemelen (Flanders-Baloise), Mattia Bais (Polti Kometa), and Alexandre Kess (Philippe Wagner/Bazin).
The quartet extended their lead to more than six minutes as the race reached the halfway point, while UAE Team Emirates, Visma-Lease a Bike, and Lidl-Trek led the chase from the peloton behind.
The breakaway split apart after the back-to-back hors category climbs; Cote de Bourscheid and Cote de Eschdorf, reduced to just three riders as Van Hemelen fell off pace.
Kess was the…
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