Romy Kasper (PAS Racing) and Andreas Stokbro Nielsen (Swatt Club) claimed inaugural wins at the new UCI Gravel World Series race in Northern Denmark, The Wolf.
Saturday's event took place in wet conditions at times on a 54km loop, with the elite men tackling three laps and the elite women racing two laps of the terrain, which varied from wide, fast gravel sectors to more challenging forest roads. There was also a technical section early on that passed the moat of Voergaard Castle, which split the field.
Stokbro Nielsen claimed the elite men's race with a 50-second gap to Gustav Frederik Dahl (Team Give Steel) in second. He had sprinted to victory just ahead of Rasmus Bøgh Wallin (Team Cranks), who completed the Danish podium sweep.
Kasper claimed a solo victory in the elite women's race, with the German rider from the team based in Denmark crossing the line less than a minute ahead of Dutch rider Elisa Serné (KDM-Pack Cycling Team).
"Winning the UCI Gravel World Series race The Wolf in the very north of Denmark after 20 km solo in tough, wet and windy conditions. Exactly my kind of racing!" said Kasper in an Instagram post.
In third it was series leader Wendy Oosterwoud, putting another PAS Racing rider on the podium. Just outside the top-three was the first of the home nation riders, Klara Sofie Skovgård Hansen (Canyon Factory Racing).
The event's status as a UCI Gravel World Series race offered riders the chance to qualify for the UCI Gravel World Championships in Nannup, Western Australia, which will be held on October 10 and 11.
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Simone is a degree-qualified journalist that has accumulated decades of wide-ranging experience while working across a variety of leading media organisations. She joined Cyclingnews as a Production Editor at the start of the 2021 season and has now moved into the role of Australia Editor. Previously she worked as a freelance writer, Australian Editor at Ella CyclingTips and as a correspondent for Reuters and Bloomberg. Cycling was initially purely a leisure pursuit for Simone, who started out as a business journalist, but in 2015 her career focus also shifted to the sport.
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