Dwars Door Het Hageland 2023 [FULL RACE]

June 10, 2023

Dwars Door Het Hageland 2023 – Aarschot – Diest : 177 km

At just 22-years-old, Dwars door het Hageland is one of the youngest Belgian one-day races on the international cycling calendar. Its first edition, back in 2001, was largely contested by semi-professional and domestic teams and it wasn’t until 2016 – when it was eventually upgraded to a 1.1 event – that it started to draw in bigger, more established WorldTour teams. The race is somewhat of a blend between Strade Bianche and the Tour of Flanders, with a number of dicey gravel sections thrown in between short, sharp climbs and bone-rattling sectors of cobblestones. These gravel and cobblestone sectors fall throughout the race, rather than just near the end, and so catalyse an aggressive race from start to finish.

Rasmus Tiller (Uno-X) claimed a second career victory at Dwars door Het Hageland, finishing from a group of three after Mathieu Van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceunick) marked his return to competition with an aggressive but ill-fortuned display.

Stan Van Tricht (Soudal-QuickStep) finished runner-up, with Florian Vermeersch (Lotto-Dstny) claiming the final spot on the podium as the trio hit the punchy final Citadel climb together.

Van der Poel had opened the race, a 177km affair with over 40km of gravel and cobbles, with more than 100km still to run, and made it alongside Tiller into the key selection on the penultimate ascent of the Citadel (330m at 7.7%), which that closed the finishing circuits around Diest.

However, the Milan-San Remo and Paris-Roubaix champion soon punctured, and was forced into a furious chase alongside his teammates on the final lap.

Up front, 2021 champion Tiller found himself in an eight-man leading group, although Uno-X’s tactical options were reduced when Soren Waerenskjold became the latest rider to puncture on the dry and dusty gravel.

Instead, it was Soudal-QuickStep who had the numerical advantage, with Yves Lampaert and Casper Pedersen alongside Van Tricht, while Vermeersch, Loic Vliegen (Intermarché-Circus-Wanty) and Simon Clarke (Israel-Premier Tech) were the other members of the lead group.

Van der Poel fought furiously to get himself back into the chase group for the 4km gravel sector on the final lap, and his teammates Timo Kielich and Gianni Vermeersch buried themselves to reduced the arrears to just 10 seconds heading into the final 5km.

On the Grasbos climb (500 metres at 5.8%), Florian Vermeersch accelerated to draw Tiller and Van Tricht as a trio into the finale and they rode, despite Tiller’s frustrations with the sandbagging Van Tricht, to the foot of the Citadel as the Van der Poel group exploded and lost all hope behind.

Tiller took charge and stormed up the climb, with Van Tricht mounting a strong response but unable to get on terms with Tiller on the very short finishing straight.

“I had good legs and the team did a really good job, keeping me in the front all the time,” said Tiller.

“Mathieu punctured – that was a bit sad. Of course, when he’s not there it’s easier. We were a bit lucky when he punctured. But I’m really happy to finish this off for the team.”

Results :