Britain’s Tom Pidcock made a strong finish to the Amstel Gold Race on Sunday to win the prestigious one-day classic for the first time.
Pidcock stormed to the front during a sprint finish and held off Marc Hirschi, with Tiesj Benoot in third.
Victory in the Netherlands was the first on the road this season for the Ineos Grenadiers rider, 24.
Marianne Vos snatched victory in the women’s race when Lorena Wiebes thought she had won and celebrated too soon.
In the men’s event, Pidcock, Hirschi and Benoot were part of a quartet that escaped from a late breakaway on the twisty, hilly 253.6-km run from Maastricht to Valkenburg.
Mathieu van der Poel, the Dutch rider who has dominated the last two Sundays with wins at the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix monuments, was content to wait in the pack.
The breakaway reached the line just ahead of the chasing pack, with Mauri Vansevenant hitting the front before Pidcock stormed past the Belgian and held off Swiss rider Hirschi of UAE Team Emirates.
Pidcock was second behind Wout van Aert in 2021 and third last year as Hirschi’s team-mate Tadej Pogacar won the Gold Race for the first time.
Slovenia’s two-time Tour de France winner, 25, is skipping the spring classics to focus on preparing for a Giro d’Italia-Tour de France double.
Vos wins Gold Race after Wiebes celebrates too early
Earlier, the women’s race was held up for an hour and shortened, after an accident involving a police motorbike escorting the peloton.
During a sprint finish in Berg en Terblijt, Wiebes raised her arms a few metres short of the line to celebrate, which allowed Vos to lunge forward to snatch victory from her Dutch compatriot.
This is the 36-year-old’s second victory in the women’s race, which returned in 2017 having previously been staged from 2001-2003, while Wiebes, 25, has yet to win it.
A policeman “was injured following a collision with a car on the Bergseweg while supervising the Amstel Gold Race”, the Limburg police said on X.
The race was held over a shortened route that avoided the crash site, with Vos – who rides for Visma-Lease a Bike – exploiting the error by SD Worx’s Wiebes to win the sprint, while Britain’s Pfeiffer Georgi was fourth behind third-placed Norwegian Ingvild Gaskjenn.
Amstel Gold Race men’s result
1.Tom Pidcock (GB/Ineos Grenadiers) 5hrs 58mins 17secs
2. Marc Hirschi (Swi/UAE Team Emirates) Same time
3. Tiesj Benoot (Bel/Team Visma-Lease a Bike)
4. Mauri Vansevenant (Bel/Soudal Quick-Step)
5. Paul Lapeira (Fra/Decathlon-AG2R La Mondiale)
Amstel Gold Race women’s result
1. Marianne Vos (Ned/Team Visma-Lease a Bike) 2hrs 35mins 2secs
2. Lorena Wiebes (Ned/SD Worx Protime) Same time
3. Ingvild Gaskjenn (Nor/Liv-AlUla-Jayco)
4. Pfeiffer Georgi (GB/Team dsm-firmenich PostNL)
5. Elisa Longo Borghini (Ita/Lidl-Trek)