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Late charging Ganna denies Van Aert at Across Flanders / Photo: © BELGA/AFP
Late charging Ganna denies Van Aert at 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.
Three days after another long-range bid by Van Aert, alongside his great rival Mathieu van der Poel, 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 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, Gannna 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 Soren Waerenskjold winning the race for third place.
M.A. Pereira--JDB
