Mathieu van der Poel sends huge Worlds warning with 174km solo demolition in Luxembourg

Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Premier Tech) produced a staggering 175km solo effort to win the fifth and final stage of the Škoda Tour de Luxembourg, as Davide Piganzoli (Visma | Lease a Bike) sealed the GC victory in Luxembourg-Limpertsberg.

By doing so, Van der Poel bookended the race in supreme style, taking both the opener and the grand finale, with a statement performance just one week before the Worlds road race in Montréal. 

In the end, Van der Poel had more than enough time to celebrate an emphatic victory, finishing 1:04 ahead of Mikkel Frølich Honoré (EF Education-EasyPost), to take his eighth victory of the season. 

Meanwhile, Piganzoli finished safely in fourth to seal his sixth professional victory and second GC success of the season. 

Out of the GC picture, Van der Poel made his mark early on in the stage, launching an attack on the first uncategorised climb with around 175km remaining.

Off on a long-range solo expedition, a chase group would form behind, in pursuit of the Dutchman. The group included Moritz Mauss (UAE Team Emirates Gen Z), Fausto Valentin Penna (Lotto Kern-Haus Outlet Montabaur), Morten Aalling Nørtoft (ColoQuick), Loïc Bettendorff (Hrinkow Advarics), Larry Valvasori (AC Bisontine), and Johannes Adamietz (Rembe | rad-net). 

Try as they might, the chasers were unable to reel in the flying Dutchman, and they were caught by the peloton inside the final 50km, while Van der Poel still held well over three minutes of an advantage.

Decathlon CMA CGM, EF Education EasyPost, Lidl-Trek and Soudal Quick-Step were among the teams that contributed to the chase of Van der Poel, but the Dutchman was still holding firm inside the final 30km with his advantage around the three-minute mark. 

Visma | Lease a Bike seized control shortly after, keeping the race leader Piganzoli well positioned to deal with any potential attacks. 

Søren Kragh Andersen (Lidl-Trek) launched an attack with 24km remaining as the road began to rise, but the in-form Pepijn Reinderink (Soudal Quick-Step) immediately countered him and quickly opened up a brief advantage, before being reeled back in. 

A flurry of attacks from the chasing pack saw the splits threaten to form in the peloton, as Van der Poel’s advantage started to steadily decrease, but not by enough for those behind wanting to win the stage. 

One of those attacks from the peloton came from Mikkel Frølich Honoré (EF Education-EasyPost), who established a far more significant gap than those who tried before him. 

Van der Poel reached the bell lap with 12km remaining, still holding a lead of 1:50 over Honoré, with the chasers led once more by the combative Reinderink a further thirty seconds back.

There were more attacks in the closing kilometres from the likes of Sam Oomen (Lidl-Trek) and Jasper Stuyven (Soudal Quick-Step), but Visma kept things under control for Piganzoli.  

The Italian race leader dealt with the final attacks from Soudal Quick-Step inside 2km to go, before launching a counterattack of his own, asserting his presence as race leader, which only Reinderink and Lukas Nerurkar (EF Education-EasyPost) could match.