Asgreen hails escape quartet as Tour de France sprinters miss a beat

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/nBliLJBGYW

Asgreen, 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. The Belgian outfit have enjoyed years of dominance with riders such as Julian Alaphilippe and Mark Cavendish.

"I'm really happy we won't be leaving the Tour without a win," he said.

Vingegaard congratulated his countryman.

"I wouldn't call that an