Mathieu Van der Poel wins Amstel Gold Race

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Mathieu Van der Poel (Corendon-Circus) shook his head in disbelief as he crossed the finish line, and so did everyone watching. The simple fact is that the Dutchman won the Amstel Gold Race on Sunday. Quite how he did so is another matter entirely.

Van der Poel, wearing the Dutch national champion’s jersey on his Amstel debut, was dead and buried with seven kilometers to go. He’d attacked from the main chase group with a handful of others but, a minute down on leaders Julian Alaphilippe (Deceuninck-QuickStep) and Jakob Fuglsang (Astana), it looked like any chance of victory had sailed.

However, in a remarkable finale - surely the most thrilling in the race’s 54-year history - the Dutchman dragged that small group back up to those chasing in between and then to the front of the race with just 300 metres to go. He hadn’t quite made the junction when Alaphilippe started sprinting but, after swooping left onto Fuglsang’s wheel, he ripped out to the right and moved clear to take a sensational victory.

It is the third in what has been an extraordinary debut spring Classics campaign for the cyclo-cross world champion. Victories at Dwars door Vlaanderen and Brabantse Pijl - not to mention fourth at the Tour of Flanders and Gent-Wevelgem - were one thing. This was another. It was a bigger race, a longer race, with a deeper field, and then there was just the mind-bending manner of it.

“I can’t believe it," Van der Poel said. "I didn’t believe I could win. I didn’t expect that at all. I still can't understand what has happened."

Simon Clarke (EF Education First) finished second, having been one of the riders caught by Van der Poel’s advancing group in the closing kilometers, while Fuglsang hung on for third place.

Alaphilippe, winner of Strade Bianche and Milan-San Remo already this spring, finished a dejected fourth and will be kicking himself, having been well and truly in the driving seat. Indeed, while it was Van der Poel who launched the first big attack of this Amstel Gold Race on the Guiperberg with 44km to go, it was Alaphilippe who triggered the decisive selection soon after.

The Frenchman forced a small split with Fuglsang, Matteo Trentin (Mitchelton-Scott) and teammate Dried Devenyns on the following climb of the Kruisberg, before attacking himself on the Eyserbosweg with 37km to go. Fuglsang set off in pursuit and the duo would spend the next 35 kilometers together at the front of the race, in what bore shades of last month’s Strade Bianche.

They collaborated well to hold off Trentin and Michal Kwiatkowski (Team Sky) - who’d attacked to bridge to the Italian - but their alliance waned in the closing kilometers. Fuglsang, who’d failed to drop Alaphilippe on the final climb of the Bemeleberg with just under 7km to go, sensed he’d be picked off in a sprint and so decided to sit in and stop contributing. Alaphilippe dropped the pace and the gap began to fall.

It was not so surprising, then, to see Kwiatkowski, who had dropped Trentin on the Bemeleberg, come back into the picture inside the final kilometre. No one, however, saw Van der Poel coming.

The Dutchman attacked from the main chase group ahead of the Bemelemberg, when they were half a minute behind Kwiatkowski and just under a minute behind the leading duo. He attacked with Bjorg Lambrecht (Lotto Soudal), Valentin Madouas (Groupama-FDJ) and Michael Schar (CCC) and they linked up with Romain Bardet (AG2R LA Mondiale), who’d gone shortly before.

With just over two kilometres to go they reached Clarke and Bauke Mollema (Trek-Segafredo), and shortly after Max Schachmann (Bora-Hansgrohe), all of whom had attacked over the Cauberg with 16km to go. The dropped Trentin was with Schachmann at that point and that newly-formed group of nine somehow managed to come back into the picture in the final kilometre.

As they came into the home straight, Alaphilippe, Fuglsang, and Kwiatkowski looked nervously over their shoulders. They saw Van der Poel on the front of the group, the gap getting closer and closer. It was high drama. Alaphilippe decided to jump from range, but it wasn’t enough. Van der Poel’s sprint was emphatic in and of itself. When you consider he’d just done the lion’s share of the work to plug that seemingly insurmountable gap - not to mention his attack from 44km out - it was nothing short of breathtaking.

How it unfolded

The riders set off from the centre of Maastricht under blue skies and sunshine, with temperatures of 20 degrees. For all the drama in the finale, it was a calm, quiet affair for the first few hours. The day’s breakaway formed after the Lange Raarberg, the third of the 35 punchy climbs on the 265.7km route in the Limburg region of south-western Holland.

In there were Michael Schär (CCC Team), Nick van der Lijke, (Roompot-Charles), Paolo Simion (Bardiani-CSF), Julien Bernard (Trek-Segafredo), Thomas Sprengers (Sport Vlaanderen Baloise), Aaron Verwilst (Sport Vlaanderen Baloise), Grega Bole (Bahrain-Merida), Jimmy Janssens (Corendon-Circus). They were soon joined by Tom Van Asbroeck (Israel Cycling Academy), and later by the Wanty-Gobert duo of Marco Minnaard and Jerome Baugnies to make it 11.

They built a lead of eight minutes before Fuglsang’s Astana team - who would later lose Alexey Lutsenko to a crash - set about upping the pace in the peloton. Things really started to intensify as they reached the Cauberg and the finish line for the second time with 85km to go. The iconic climb - formerly the last key test - would appear once more, but the new finale that has been in place since 2017 would take the riders over the Guelhemmerberg and Bemeleberg on one extra loop.

The break had been brought back to just one minute when Van der Poel launched his first roll of the dice, bursting clear on the Guiperberg, the 28th climb and the first in a crucial condensed stretch with just over 40km to go. Gorka Izaguirre (Astana) managed to go with him as the peloton fragmented behind, but refused to collaborate, and it wasn’t long before they were back in the main bunch.

On the next climb, there was a successful attack. More by stealth, Devenyns hit the front with Alaphilippe on the wheel and a gap opened. Trentin and Fuglsang were alive to it but the rest of the field were caught behind. Those four soon caught the breakaway before Alaphilippe, almost led out by Devenyns, attacked alone on the Eyserbosweg. Fuglsang responded and joined up with him on the other side.

Kwiatkowski then attacked with Michael Woods (EF) and joined Trentin in a three-man chase, though Woods was dropped on the viciously steep Keutenberg - the fourth-to-last climb - with 28km to go. The main group was already well thinned out by this point, the notable absentees being Alejandro Valverde (Movistar) and Wout Van Aert (Jumbo-Visma), who were caught in another group a minute behind. Peter Sagan had already been dropped well before, so there would be no redemption in what has been a trying spring campaign for the three-time world champion. 

Alaphilippe and Fuglsang reached the foot of the Cauberg with 19 seconds on Kwiatkowski and Trentin. The main chase group were led by EF but had slipped to 55 seconds. Despite attacks from that group on the Cauberg, the main moves came beyond the summit, through the finishing straight as the bell rang. Schachmann, who had attacked on the Keutenberg, went again and set about hunting down Trentin, taking all manner of risks on the winding roads. Mollema and Clarke formed another duo a little further back.

Alaphilippe and Fuglsang began to look at each other on the Guelhemmerberg and their lead dropped to 12 seconds as Kwiatkowski rode away from Trentin, who made it back on beyond the summit. The leading duo then began to work well again, and they seemed certain to go to the finish together, opening 30 seconds on the two chasers and just under a minute on the rest of the field.

Fuglsang launched an attack on the final climb of the Bemeleberg with just under 6km to go but couldn’t shake Alaphilippe. From then on, he gambled and refused to collaborate, and that’s when the gap started to come down. Kwiatkowski dropped Trentin on the Bemeleberg and dragged himself back into contention under the flamme rouge. That would have been dramatic enough, but what happened next took it to another level. Van der Poel’s group, ignored by the TV cameras, came roaring back into view in the home straight.

The Dutchman, undoubtedly now one of the biggest stars in world cycling, then finished off a race that will live long in the memory.

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