Kasper Asgreen powers to Tour of Flanders Victory

Deceuninck Quick Step’s 26-year-old Kasper Asgreen pulled off a major upset against race favorite Mathieu van Der Poel

Asgreen, one of six riders to break away from the main peloton with 42 km left, attacked 27 km from the line and was only followed by Van der Poel and Wout van Aert.

Van der Poel then produced one of his trademark brutal attacks in the penultimate hill, dropping Van Aert and Asgreen, only for the Dane to come back on a flat section.

“It was a really hard race. We were both on the limit. It was a question of the margins at the end,” said Asgreen.

“I decided to try and trust my sprint. Going into the last kilometer I got Mathieu on the front and I heard we still had more than 30 seconds,” said Asgreen, knowing the following group could not catch up. He played cat-and-mouse with the Dutchman

“So I decided to stay on his wheel, so I could decide when to go.”

Asgreen adds his victory to his win at the E3 Saxo Bank Classic. 

VIDEO: 2021 Tour of Flanders Highlights

2021 Tour of Flanders Top 10

1 Kasper Asgreen (Den) Deceuninck-QuickStep
2 Mathieu van der Poel (Ned) Alpecin-Fenix
3 Greg Van Avermaet (Bel) AG2R Citroën Team
4 Jasper Stuyven (Bel) Trek-Segafredo
5 Sep Vanmarcke (Bel) Israel Start-up Nation
6 Wout Van Aert (Bel) Jumbo-Visma
7 Gianni Vermeersch (Bel) Alpecin-Fenix
8 Anthony Turgis (Fra) Total Direct Energie
9 Florian Senechal (Fra) Deceuninck-QuickStep
10 Dylan van Baarle (Ned) Ineos Grenadiers