Tour of Denmark: Wout van Aert scores hat-trick on stage 3 with a win on wet and wild queen stage

The victory gives Van Aert a 20-second lead over Kubiš in the general classification.

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After a standard early breakaway, the stage really began to heat up with 60km to go after the move was down to just one rider, Andreas Stockbro (ColoQuick) and within a minute of the chasing peloton.

Visma-Lease a Bike put in a huge surge of pace to try and split up the field with 57km to go, but Ashlin Barry slid out in a roundabout as he was leading the charge, forcing Van Aert to go off-roading to avoid the fall. The race leader got back underway quickly after changing bikes with Menno Huising.

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Then, as the gap to Stockbro came down further, Matyas Kopecky (Unibet Rose Rockets), Marcus Hansen (BHS-PL Beton Bornholm) and William Blume Levy (Uno-X Mobility) came across with 48km to go to breathe new life into the breakaway.

The leaders were finally caught with 20km to go, and Visma-Lease a Bike again surged, this time using a small climb to cause splits throughout the peloton before Van Aert made his move with 17km to go.

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Van Aert was joined by sprint rival Lukaš Kubiš (Unibet Rose Rockets). They were joined by Uno-X Mobility rider Alexander Kamp and Van Aert’s teammate Laporte with 13.5km to go.

At the start of the final lap, six more riders made it across: Søren Kragh Andersen (Lidl-Trek), Pier-André Côté (NSN), Levy and Henrik Pedersen (Uno-X), Francisco Muñoz (Polti-VisitMalta) and Matyaš Kopecký (Unibet).

Uno-X Mobility led into the final kilometre but Van Aert accelerated past them with Kubiš on his wheel and Laporte right behind. Kubiš kicked past the Belgian but as Laporte faded, Van Aert surged again and soloed to another stage win.