Late-charging Ganna denies Van Aert at one-day classic Across Flanders

Filippo Ganna won the one-day semi-classic Across Flanders race on Wednesday as local favourite Wout Van Aert was agonisingly caught just 100 metres from the finish after a brave solo breakaway.

“This is an amazing victory for me,” said Ganna, of the Ineos-Grenadiers team, who had to fight back after breaking his front wheel and handlebars in two separate incidents earlier in the 185-kilometre race from Roeselare to Waregem.

“Wout made an impressive performance. To catch him was not easy, but in the end, the legs supported me to the finish line.”

Three days after another long-range bid by Van Aert -- alongside his great rival Mathieu van der Poel when he was caught a kilometre from the finish of In Flanders Fields -- the Belgian was again denied at the death.

And it was the second straight year he had finished second in this race, called Dwars door Vlaanderen in Dutch, meaning he has not won a major one-day race in more than two years.

Van Aert had launched his attack up the Eikenberg cobbled climb with about 40km to ride and quickly caught three riders from an earlier breakaway.

He shed those three companions one by one as a charging peloton ate into the 45-second lead they had built up.

With the gap coming down, Ganna and Belgian Florian Vermeersch launched a counter-attack to try to catch Van Aert.

Vermeersch, who similarly was part of unsuccessful counter-attacks at In Flanders Fields and two days before that when Van der Poel won the E3 Saxo Classic, faded, but Ganna pushed on.

And the Italian was rewarded as he surged past the fading Van Aert with 100m left to finish just ahead of the Belgian and one second in front of the peloton, with Norwegian Soren Waerenskjold winning the race for third place.

Earlier, Uno-X rider Magnus Cort shook off a difficult year to win stage 2 of the Tour of Catalonia after a long-range breakaway was caught just ahead of the home straight.

The Dane with the handlebar moustache is best known for a star turn during the 2022 Tour de France when he was cheered all the way through stage three in his homeland while leading that stage in the polka dot jersey.

Cort said he hadn’t raced well since setting off sick on last year’s the Tour de France.

“It’s been a year of struggles so I’m just so happy,” he said.

On Tuesday, he took the lead with 100m to go, beating Noa Isidore into second and Francesco Busatto into third in an uphill dash for the line.

Nestled in behind this trio, French national champion Dorian Godon of Ineos Grenadiers maintained the overall lead after finishing fourth, with 110 riders getting the same time at the finish line.

Remco Evenepoel and Tom Pidcock remain third and fourth in the overall. Stage 2 started in the former home town of Catalan surrealist painter Salvador Dali, also famed for his moustache, in Figueres, for a rolling 167km run to Banyoles.

It was a similar stage to Monday’s but with the climb just 25km from the finish line and then downhill all the way.

It didn’t suit Irish sprinter Sam Bennett, who finished almost 25mins off the pace. Wednesday’s run should see Godon and Cort locked in a struggle for the overall lead again with a hilly 160km run from Mont-roig del Camp to Vila-seca. Favourite Jonas Vingegaard will likely go on the attack on stages four, five and six in the Pyrenees. Sunday’s finale takes in seven circuits of Montjuic in Barcelona where the Tour de France starts in July.

Agence France-Presse