Rasmus Søjberg Pedersen sprinted to victory on the final stage of the Tour of Denmark, expertly negotiating a chaotic finale which featured a large crash to take his first win of the season.
Racing in the colours of the Danish national team, but contracted to Decathlon-CMA CGM, Pedersen surfed the wheels in the finale, benefitting from the work of Lidl-Trek as they looked to set up Max Walscheid, who finished in second place. Emerging sprint talent Tom Crabbe (Team Flanders-Baloise) finished on the final step on the podium.
Overall leader Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike) finished safely in 11th place to confirm his victory after winning each of the first three stages. Lukas Kubis (Unibet-Rose Rockets) was second overall and Henrik Pedersen (Uno-X Mobility) finished third.
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How it unfolded
It was a pan-flat parcours for the final stage of the 36th PostNord Tour of Denmark. A large breakaway of 20 riders extricated itself from the Visma-Lease a Bike-led peloton. Within it, several riders were within three minutes of Van Aert’s lead.
With 15km to race, the Dutch team had been able to close the gap to the front down to 30 seconds on the final circuit, which the riders would take on five times. With the peloton closing in, the enthusiasm and collaboration had drained from the breakaway, and the bulk of the group was caught with 9km left.
Matias Malmberg and Mads Andersen, both from third-tier team Swatt Club, had made one last effort and were the last to be swept up as the sprint trains came to the fore with 4km to go.
Modern Adventure Pro Cycling and Polti-VisitMalta were the most prominent teams in the bunch with 2km left, but the washing machine effect of the peloton was swirling in a chaotic finale as half a dozen squads tussled for superiority.
Unibet-Rose Rockets hit the front in the last kilometre to position Kubis, but it was Lidl-Trek who had the numbers in the end, perfectly positioning Walscheid. There was a large crash which took out a large portion of the peloton on the final corner.
Jensen Plowright (Alpecin-Premier Tech) was the first rider to start the sprint. As he faded, Pedersen slipped through a small gap to his right as Walscheid launched on the other side of the road. Pedersen carried enough speed to defeat the experienced German and hold off the fast-finishing Crabbe.
For Van Aert, his work to win the Tour of Denmark had already been done earlier in the week as he carried a big lead into the concluding stage. The Belgian has put behind him the injury that kept him out of the Tour de France, and he takes his first stage race win in three years.
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