Van der Poel takes maiden WorldTour victory at Dwars door Vlaanderen

World cyclocross champion Mathieu van der Poel took his first win first WorldTour as he topped Anthony Turgis (Direct Energie) and Bob Jungels (Deceuninck-Quick-Step) to triumph at Dwars door Vlaanderen.

A crash in the women’s race up the road caused their race to slow, which meant the men’s race behind needed to be neutralised.

The race was quickly restarted before officials once again suspended hostilities when it emerged the breakaway was now behind the peloton.

Van der Poel joined an attack out of the bunch with more than an hour left to go, catching up to the remnants of the early break, and then relying on his fast finish to seal the deal out of a five-man group.

“I had to make sure that nobody came from behind, I just looked when Turgis went. I felt there was a sprint in my legs and I just finished it off,” Van der Poel said at the finish.

“It wasn’t a special moment when I crashed the other week it’s a very hard race. This was a very hard race too, only 180km today but this Sunday we go nearly 100km more. I don’t see myself as a favourite for Sunday yet, we’ll see what happens,”.

Dwars door Vlaanderen 2019 results: