Dane Kasper Asgreen won stage 18 of the Tour de France on Thursday as a long range escape edged a fast-closing peloton to the line at Bourg-en-Bresse.Another Dane, Jonas Vingegaard, retained his 7min 35sec lead atop the overall standings.As the Tour returned to flat terrain, three members of a four-man escape group crossed the line just metres ahead of the elite sprinters.Dutchman Pascal Eenkhoorn of Lotto-Dstny was second and Norwegian Jonas Abrahamsen of Uno-X was third.
Their escape companion Belgian Victor Campenaerts, who had ridden hard to give teammate Eenkhoorn a winning chance, was engulfed by the peloton at the line to show what a close call it was after a 20km chase fell short.??
A first stage win for @k_asgreen and a relief for a whole team today!?? Première victoire pour @k_asgreen et soulagement pour toute l'équipe @soudalquickstep aujourd'hui !#TDF2023 - @Continental_fr pic.twitter.com/nBliLJBGYWAsgreen, a 28-year-old, dedicated the victory to his escape partners after they combined in an alliance of fortune that delivered the win for only one of them."We raced the end like a team time-trial," said Asgreen, part of the Danish team time-trial world champions of 2018."We realised that if we all committed we could pull it off," he said."I couldn't have done it without the others.
Even a small group can manage to cheat the sprinters," said Asgreen, who broke away to win the Tour of Flanders in 2021.The victory was the first for his Soudal-Quick-Stepteam on this Tour.