Love the Danish performance in the surprisingly Flanders Around

Danish Kasper Asgreen ran Sunday as a motorcycle, when he finished as number two in the classic Flanders, one of cycling's five monuments, which denotes the oldest and most prestigious endagsløb.

the Dane's performance was more impressive, as he along the way in the course of the 270 brostensfyldte kilometers several times were used as draught animals for Deceuninck-QuickStep crew and even spent a lot of effort in a failed eruption.

The Danish Flanders-the debutant, however, could not catch up with the Italian Alberto Bettiol (COMMUNITY Education), there was a surprising winner of the year, after the 25-year-old Italian stuck with under 20 km to the goal in Oudenaarde.

Here was the dane is understandably very happy with his own performance.

- It is absolutely fantastic. I drove an aggressive race throughout the day, so to be able to finish of with to stand on podeiet in my first Flanders Around, I'm really, really proud of, says Asgreen to TV2 Sport.

Bettiol stuck out on the route of, just as Kasper Asgreen with its companion Dylan van Baarle (Sky) had been retrieved on the last climb on the brostensstigningen Paterberg.

The 24-year-old dane had a good 50 km from the target taken the chance and only run up to Stijn Vandenbergh (AG2R) and Sep Vanmarcke (COMMUNITY Education) on the Koppenberg.

In the absolute finale - when it became clear that Bettiol could not be retrieved - drove Asgreen again even away with a few kilometers to the goal, and there was no one who could answer among the favorites.

he even got the chance was never part of the plan. He was the one who had to run to the others - not the one who should be run:

- No, it was never the plan. But when you are sitting in the finals, you are also allowed to run. it is the cool thing about that run on this team.

I sat in the last 40 kilometers and was constantly on the verge of a cramp. So I feared all the time, that the legs of the next increase would just unlock under me.

It was only when we came over the last rise, I thought, 'now we are running for a result', he says.

In favoritternes spurt took the Norwegian Alexander Kristoff (UAE) third, when he beat Dutch Mathieu van der Poel (Corendon-Circus) in the sprint.

Last year drove the Mads Pedersen (Trek-Segafredo) in his first Flanders Around into second place, while Michael Valgren (Dimension Data) was number four. There was, therefore, great expectations for the two, but none of them was to be found in the final.