Mathieu van der Poel adds E3 Saxo Classic to palmares with spectacular solo; Jasper Stuyven 2nd and Wout van Aert brave 3rd after crash

After a truly thrilling edition of the E3 Saxo Classic, world champion Mathieu van der Poel has taken the win at this famous one-day race for the first time in his career.

It didn't take long for the drama to start at this year as with over 100km still to go, a big crash saw a number of notable riders hit the deck, with the likes of Per Strand Hagenes and Luke Rowe being forced to withdraw from the race as a result.

With ten men in the break, including Emil Herzog, Remi Cavagna, Lorenzo Milesi, Ivo Oliveira and Jonas Abrahamsen, their lead went up to around 4:30 after the crash.

As the break entered the Taaienberg aka the 'Boonenberg', the advantage of the peloton had been cut to 3:00.

With just under 80km to go, on that famed cobbled section, Mathieu van der Poel made his first move of the day. Although it was back together a few kilometres later, with van der Poel not ready to go all-in on the attack, the gap to the break had been cut even further to 1:49 when the Dutchman rejoined his rivals.

Next man to test the legs with an acceleration was Julian Alaphilippe. The Frenchman was quickly reeled back in by the ever-dwindling group of pre-race favourites, although Mads Pedersen was right on the counter-attack.

Despite the fact none of the attacks were really able to be decisive, the timegap to the breakaway had been destroyed by the infernal pace of the favourites.

Through the train station, Oier Lazkano reignited things. Van der Poel was quickly on his wheel and coming over though, with Wout van Aert in turn on the Dutchman's wheel. With things regrouping behind, van Aert and van der Poel began to pick their way through the remainder of the day's breakaway. Once the breakaway was entirely swallowed, van Aert and van der Poel were back with the bunch though.

On the Paterberg, van Aert was attempting to move up on the wet cobbles when his front wheel slipped out disastrously, giving the Belgian a hard landing on the stones. With van der Poel attacking off the front, it wasn't completely game over for van Aert but it had been made incredibly difficult.

Incredibly though, van Aert managed to recover relatively quickly, work his way back through the chasers and then attack in solo chase of the lone leader, van der Poel.

With the last of the cobbles done and 20km to go, van der Poel had 37 seconds lead over van Aert, with a group of ten 1:18 back on the world champion.

Although van Aert was holding the gap to the chasers behind him, van der Poel's advantage continued to grow. At 10km from the line, 1:14 separated the duo.

With the chase group began to attack each other though, van Aert joined by Jasper Stuyven with 5km to go.

Victory though was unquestionably van der Poel's, as he entered the final kilometre already celebrating and nearly two minutes clear of his rivals.

In the race for the rest of the podium, Stuyven took second, van Aert third.

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