Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Premier Tech) soloed to victory for the third time in a row in the E3 Saxo Classic, but for the first time he was nearly caught in the final kilometre.
Florian Vermeersch (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) was about to catch Van der Poel at the red kite, but chose that moment to sit up and look for one of his three companions to pull through, and found no help. With that one moment of hesitation, the chasers gave the win away to the Dutchman.
Per Strand Hagenes (Visma-Lease a Bike) out-sprinted Vermeersch for second, leaving the Belgian to settle for third.
Stan Dewulf (Decathlon CMA CGM), the last man standing from the day's early breakaway, finished fourth ahead of Jonas Abrahamsen (Uno-X Mobility).
Van der Poel spent more than 68 kilometres on the attack after following a move on the Taaienberg and ending up on his own for much longer than he had planned.
"I'm really happy with the win but it cost a lot of energy," a visibly exhausted Van der Poel said.
"I thought I could make it but with 5km to go, it nearly went wrong. Especially with at bit more than one k to go, the legs were just not really turning well anymore," he said.
"And then I looked back and they were really close, but I knew if I waited, I would become fifth, because I didn't have the legs anymore to do a sprint. So I just did an all-out seated [effort] to the finish line."
How it unfolded
The big warm-up for the Tour of Flanders, the E3 Saxo Classic, got off to a fast start with numerous attacks. After some 40 kilometres of attacks, a group of three riders grew to six, and the gap rapidly blew out to over three minutes.
Bastien Tronchon (Groupama-FDJ), Nicholas Zukowsky (Pinarello Q36.5), Michiel Lambrecht (Team Flanders - Baloise), Stan Dewulf (Decathlon CMA CGM), Luke Durbridge (Jayco-AlUla), and Sven Erik Bystrøm (Uno-X Mobility) made up the leading group, and they were chased for most of the day by Sean Flynn and Henri-François Renard-Haquin (Picnic-PostNL) and Vojtěch Kmínek (Burgos Burpellet BH).
With 90km to go, an attack from behind brought seven more riders, including TotalEnergies' leader Anthony Turgis, into contact with the Flynn group but the peloton was within 30 seconds of that second chase while the leaders were three minutes up the road.
The Turgis group gained 50 seconds on the peloton, but overall, the gap to the leaders was shrinking below two minutes when Tim van Dijke (Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe) lit it up on the Taaienberg and was quickly joined by Van der Poel.
Van der Poel and Van Dijke bridged across to the Turgis group, and then, on the Boigneberg with 63.5km to go, Van der Poel attacked and went solo in pursuit of the lead group.
However, with riders like Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek), Valentin Madouas (Groupama-FDJ) and Christophe Laporte (Visma-Lease a Bike) still behind, the peloton was highly motivated to bring back the escapees. They swept past the Turgis group with 53km to go, leaving Van der Poel in no-man’s land behind the breakaway.
Van der Poel had the leaders in sight on the Kappelberg with 48km to go and joined them 2km later, with a few kilometres to recover before the next climb, the Paterberg.
True to form, Van der Poel powered away on the steepest part of the cobbled climb, with Dewulf continuing to chase as the rest of his companions went back to the peloton, which was just one minute behind. Van der Poel had a decision to make - wait for Dewulf and get some help, or forge ahead alone. Of course, he chose the latter.
Over the Oude Kwaremont, Van der Poel had almost 30 seconds on Dewulf and a minute on what was left of the chasing peloton and 37km to race.
On the next climb, the E3 Col, Van der Poel gained another 10 seconds while Dewulf was caught by Vermeersch, Hagenes, and Abrahamsen.
Something unusual began to happen over the final 30 kilometres - the chasing quartet actually cooperated - even Dewulf, who, after taking time to recover from his day-long breakaway, started pulling through.
They closed to within 30 seconds of Van der Poel with the peloton at a minute, and the gaps seemed to stagnate on the long, straight road to Harelbeke.
But with 10km to go, the chasers were closing in on the convoy following the Dutch superstar, and had a rare chance to take down one of the biggest names in the sport.
The race was by no means decided with 8km to go - Van der Poel had 20 seconds on the four chasers and only 40 seconds on the bunch behind them, with Red Bull-Bora-Hansgrohe pushing the pace.
As the rain began to fall with 5km to go, Van der Poel's hopes of a solo victory were dampened when the chasing quartet got within 10 seconds.
At the red kit with 1km to go, Vermeersch very nearly closed the gap down, but he looked around for someone to pull through, and that just gave Van der Poel the impetus he needed to solo to another E3 Classic victory.
Results
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