Mathieu van der Poel wins thrilling Brabantse Pijl victory

ByEurosport

Updated 17/04/2019 at 16:52 GMT

Mathieu van der Poel (Corendon-Cirus) continued his fine start to the season with his fifth win of 2019 as he triumped at Brabantse Pijl on Wednesday.

Mathieu van der Poel celebrates

Image credit: Getty Images

Van der Poel, 24, was part of the group from the break that contained defending champion Tim Wellens, the in-form Julian Alaphilippe and Michael Matthews.

The quartet regularly exchanged the lead in the final stages of the race, with no rider able to distance himself from the other three.

In the end Van der Poel positioned himself perfectly and in the final sprint there was no one who was going to be able to catch him.

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It is the Dutchman’s second Classics victory of the season after winning Dwars door Vlaanderen.

He also placed fourth at the Tour of Flanders and Gent-Wevelgem in what has been a stellar maiden Classics campaign, as he has catapulted into becoming one of the hottest names in cycling.

"I'm very happy and also proud to be there with three big names in front, and to finish it off like this is kind of like a dream," he said afterwards.

I'm really happy and I said before this Classics season that this race suits me the best and I'm glad I could prove that.

Van der Poel is the first Dutchman to win the race since Michael Boogerd in 2003. It comes 34 years after his father Adri won the same race.

It sets him up perfectly ahead of Amstel on Sunday as the calendar transitions to the Ardennes.

De Brabantse Pijl Results

1 Mathieu van der Poel (Ned) Corendon-Circus
2 Julian Alaphilippe (Fra) Deceuninck-QuickStep
3 Tim Wellens (Bel) Lotto Soudal
4 Michael Matthews (Aus) Team Sunweb
5 Bjorg Lambrecht (Bel) Lotto Soudal
6 Alberto Bettiol (Ita) EF Education First
7 Enrico Gasparotto (Ita) Dimension Data
8 Alexander Kamp (Den) Riwal Readynez Cycling Team
9 Pieter Serry (Bel) Deceuninck-QuickStep
10 Maurits Lammertink (Ned) Roompot-Charles

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17/04/2019 at 16:45

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