Cycling - Kasper Asgreen takes stunning win at Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne

Updated 01/03/2020 at 23:47 GMT

Kasper Asgreen (Deceuninck-Quick Step) took the biggest victory of his career with a stunning win at Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne on Sunday.

Danish Kasper Asgreen of Deceuninck - Quick-Step celebrates as he crosses the finish line to win the 71st edition of the Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne one day cycling race, 200 km from Kuurne to Kuurne via Brussels, Sunday 01 March 2020

Image credit: Getty Images

Asgreen broke away with a leading group with some way to go in the race but after the final climb it looked for all the world as if the peloton would reel them in.

Whilst some riders began to fall Asgreen stayed strong and kept attacking as the final kilometres approached.

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Still it looked as if he would be caught but Asgreen held on and no-one from the peloton were able to launch an attack to bring him in whilst the Dane’s team happily sat back rather than try to unleash Fabio Jakobsen.

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The Dutchman came in fourth with Great Britain’s Ben Swift in seventh for Team Ineos.

But none could live with the magnificent Asgreen who showed the sort of fight that is required in such a difficult race.

The result is the first time there has been a Danish winner at Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne for 24 years since Rolf Sorensen.

“Actually I was in a room with Stijn [Steels,” Asgreen said afterwards when asked he had bunked with last year’s winner Bob Jungels the night before.

“But Bob told me this morning on the bus to just do like I did last year.

“On the small roads after we came back to the big group we knew it was possible to go the way because the roads were so small and that was the plan and see if we could make it to the finish otherwise we had Fabio for the sprint..”

When asked when he thought he was going to win Asgreen replied “When I saw the 300m to go sign!

“It was so f****** hard. I had to drop the Alpecin rider in the crossroads because he was not pulling.

“That effort [to get rid of him] was really hard and after that I was doubting whether I would be able to make it all the way to the line.”