Dutchman Van Der Poel Powers To Strade Bianche Win

Dutch rider Mathieu van der Poel powered to victory in the Strade Bianche one-day classic men's race on the Piazza del Campo in Siena on Saturday

Milan, (APP - UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 6th Mar, 2021 ) :Dutch rider Mathieu van der Poel powered to victory in the Strade Bianche one-day classic men's race on the Piazza del Campo in Siena on Saturday.

The Alpecin-Fenix team rider pulled ahead on the Via Santa Caterina climb with 740 metres to go and crossed the line five seconds ahead of France's world road champion Julian Alaphilippe with Colombian Egan Bernal third 20sec adrift.

"Strade is one of the races I really wanted to win, and it's really cool to win it today," said 26-year-old Van der Poel who clocked 4hr 40min 29sec over 184km in the first big race of the season on the famous white dirt roads of Tuscany.

"I felt pretty good, I launched an attack on the last gravel section and I came with Bernal and Alaphilippe in the lead.

"We did a pretty strong ride the three of us.

I felt I had something left in the legs to go all out on the last climb, and amazing to finish it off in this way.

"I think Julian was a bit tired at the end.

"It was especially Egan Bernal who gave me a really good impression in the uphill sections, but I knew that the last section was really something for me." Earlier Dutch rider Chantal van den Broek-Blaak won the women's race.

The 31-year-old former road race world champion, riding for Team SD Worx, finished seven seconds ahead of Italy's 2017 race winner Elisa Longo Borghini of Trek-Segafredo.

Her fellow Dutch teammate Anna van der Breggen crossed in third a further nine seconds behind the winner.

Two-time defending champion Annemiek van Vleuten of the Netherlands was denied a third consecutive win, finishing 11 seconds adrift in fourth.