Three kilometres in, and gone
Mathieu van der Poel went clear after three kilometres of the final stage of the Tour de Luxembourg earlier today and rode the remaining 174 alone. The stage from Mersch to Luxembourg-Limpertsberg measured 177 kilometres with more than 3,000 metres of climbing in it, and the Alpecin-Premier Tech rider covered the lot in 4:10:58 without company.
Solo wins of that length barely exist in the modern calendar. Riders attack from 30 or 40 kilometres out and the peloton treats it as bold. Van der Poel’s move came before most of the bunch had finished settling into position, and his advantage grew past five minutes before the road started to bite.
The gap closed in the final hour without ever threatening to disappear. Mikkel Frolich Honore of EF Education-EasyPost led the chase home 1:04 back, with Pepijn Reinderink third at 1:09. Four hours of pursuit had clawed back four fifths of the lead and still finished a minute short.
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Piganzoli takes the race, Van der Poel takes the day
The overall title went to Davide Piganzoli of Visma-Lease a Bike, who completed the five stages in 16:22:17. Mattéo Vercher finished 52 seconds down in second and his TotalEnergies team-mate Thomas Gachignard was third at 54 seconds, a podium separated by two seconds after nearly 16 and a half hours of racing.
Piganzoli held his lead comfortably on the final day, sitting fourth on the stage in the group behind. It was a clean win in a tight general classification, and almost nobody will remember it, which is the cost of sharing a start sheet with a rider in this mood.
Van der Poel had already taken stage 1 in a sprint after a late attack was pulled back. He leaves Luxembourg with two stage wins from five days.
Built for next Sunday
None of this was the point. Van der Poel entered the race to sharpen up for the World Championships road race in Montreal next weekend, a circuit built around the Mount Royal climb. He won the Paris stage of the Tour de France in July, so the legs were never in question. What he wanted was hours at racing intensity, and he took 4:10:58 of them in one go.
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