Mathieu van der Poel (Corendon-Circus) has claimed the victory at the Brabantse Pijl after he outsprinted Julian Alaphilippe (Deceuninck-Quick-Step) and Tim Wellens (Lotto Soudal) to the finish line.
Alaphilippe, who has eight wins to his credit so far in 2019, kicked off the action with 18 kilometers to go on the Herstraat climb. Wellens and van der Poel followed, as did Michael Matthews (Team Sunweb).
Heading into the finish, each rider tried to get a jump on his rivals, but Van der Poel led into the final corner and held the others off in the finishing straight, as the bunch closed in behind.
“I’m very happy and also proud to be there with three big names in front, and to finish it off like this is kind of like a dream,” Van der Poel said.
“I’m really happy and I said before this Classics season that this race suits me the best and I’m glad I could prove that.”
The Dutch rider will also head to Amstel Gold Race with ambitions to win his third major one-day race of the spring, following Brabantse Pijl and Dwars door Vlaanderen.
De Brabantse Pijl 2019 results:
| 1 | Mathieu van der Poel (Corendon-Circus) | 4:35:11 |
| 2 | Julian Alaphilippe (Deceuninck-Quick-Step) | ,, |
| 3 | Tim Wellens (Lotto Soudal) | ,, |
| 4 | Michael Matthews (Team Sunweb) | ,, |
| 5 | Bjorg Lambrecht (Lotto Soudal) | +11” |
| 6 | Alberto Bettiol (EF Education First) | +12” |
| 7 | Enrico Gasparotto (Dimension Data) | ,, |
| 8 | Alexander Kamp (Riwal Readynez) | ,, |
| 9 | Pieter Serry (Deceuninck-Quick-Step) | ,, |
| 10 | Maurits Lammertink (Roompot-Charles) | ,, |
