Marlen Reusser (Movistar) won the women’s Dwars door Vlaanderen, coming from behind to outsprint Demi Vollering (FDJ United-Suez) and Lieke Nooijen (Visma-Lease a Bike) after Nooijen almost caught the two superstars by surprise on the finishing straight.

Reusser attacked with 24km to go just after the Huisepontweg cobbles, and Vollering jumped after her, bridging across at the bottom of the Nokereberg 22km from the finish.

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Reusser (L) beginning to celebrate as Nooijen (C) grimaces behind Vollering (R)

Reusser, Nooijen and Vollering at the line (Image credit: Getty Images)

“I’m a bit surprised because I didn’t expect this, I’m so happy,” Reusser said after the finish. “In the beginning of the race, I really had trouble positioning and stuff, but I kept being confident, also to help the team. We have a super strong team, and it felt so good to know that I had Liane [Lippert] and Cat [Ferguson] in the group behind, they are so fast, so if we don’t make it, we can probably still get a result with them.

“It was key to have Cat behind because I knew I don’t have to really keep pushing. I said to Demi, ‘I stay in the wheel’. We had the opposite in the Tour de Suisse, today I had the cards to say I can go in the wheel. She had to go, I could follow for quite a while and then I could make it,” Reusser described the sprint.

However, Nooijen almost threw a spanner in the works with her late attack. Reusser did not expect Nooijen to be as close as she was, flying past the two leaders at the 250-metre mark.

“I was like, ‘what the fuck?’. I heard it on the radio, but the TV is behind, so I hear ‘Visma is coming very fast’, and I was like, ‘yeah, I can see that’. I thought, give it a try. I was really lucky with the sprint because I had this injury, and my sprint isn’t great at the moment, but I could stay in the wheel for so long,” finished Reusser.

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