LONGEST SOLO WIN! 🤩 | 2026 Men's Tour of Luxembourg Stage 5 Race Highlights | TNT Sports Cycling

It's our lone breakaway. Yes, it is Mathieu van der Poel on his own. Yeah, the final stage of the ŠKODA Tour of Luxembourg has a interesting scenario because the race was about three kilometers in when Mathieu van der Poel decided to attack on his own. And if you haven't followed the other stages, on stage three, the peloton finished six and a half minutes down on our race leader and our race winner of that day. And that means that Mathieu van der Poel doesn't have a chance anymore for GC, but he has a very important appointment next Sunday. He's here to do some training and well, he's been on the attack by himself almost a hundred kilometers now. These six riders, they had approached about 40 seconds, but all six of them can't close the gap. Well, Martinus Backstedt, if you want to have a good training for worlds going on a potentially 175 kilometer long solo effort, that sounds like pretty intense training. Well, it definitely would be. I mean, it is TT day, let's remember that, you know, with the world championships being on later on today as well. Looks like we have a little bit of acceleration coming from the peloton. The vibe feels different. Positioned for the corner at the bottom of the descent and also for this climb here, I would say. This is the Pabaiabierg, it's a very famous climb here. Oh, keep that dog off the road, please. It's a climb that we've done many, many times in the history, sometimes even having our finish here on top of the Pabaiabierg. That's not the case today, but look at the amount of people who've come out. Maybe they should step back a little bit further once the peloton arrives here. Well, these three seconds are taking Macho van der Poel to nine minutes and 42 seconds away from Piganzoli. Hooray. The biggest difficulty for van der Poel, I think, is the longer climb here on the way, the first climb that he's on now. It's not particularly steep, certainly at the bottom of it. It's only the middle and top end again, where it's a bit steeper. And I think the peloton definitely has the upper hand on those lower gradients. But is it enough? Is there, you know, can they bring him back two minutes 11, 19 km? Well, you're the expert. Can they? Technically, like I said, it is possible, but it's a tall order. It is a tall order. And yeah, when there's just stop and go attacks here from what's actually left of the bunch, yeah, that's going to make it hard to really close any gap. You have to find a few riders to really put in a joint effort and not just one against one, like we see now. No. Full honoree. A really good series of bike, really good series of races in Italy. Also in these undulating local circuits. And this group is very, very small. Maxime Vichy, Axel Mario at the back here. Also Joschka Stauffer. And a great ride there by a number 14. That is the very young Senna Remain, a man who also comes from a cyclocross background. I think a former Dutch national champion even. Pepijn Rijndring there in third place. It's a very, very old Germanic name, Pepijn or Pippin, as you might remember it from Lord of the Rings, one of the four hobbits. And also quite a few Frankish kings were actually called Pippin. It is considered a little bit of a posh name in the Netherlands. Miss Hansen, the sports minister, is having a busy few days. She's been in the race at least three days already. One of the biggest sports events in her country. Honoré is also losing a little bit of time as Rijndring is on the attack, yes again, with Piganzoli, with Van den Berghe, and with Gaginiar. Ruker is also moving up right there. Decathlon has got Antoine Noods with number 24. There were no points. Check, final check. No, no points whatsoever when they crossed the finish line there. Or the top of the climb, actually. This is the final kilometre. And these kind of attacks, short attack and then stalling again. Yeah, that's not going to bring back Mathieu van der Poel. There we go. It's a lot of people here on the climb to see one of the best bike riders in the world. It's not as fluent as it was, but he's still going really, really strong. And he might have that same winning margin than that Thierry Marie had all the way back in 1991. A minute and a bit. But let's get back to the front. Not this front. Well, they're almost about to catch Honoré. And remember, there's six and four seconds still on the line. And for those two guys of Total Energie in the back, yeah, that could be important. But Hendrik wants to make a point. He leaves this tour of Luxembourg with the most amazing memories. But the talk of the day is this man. His name, Mathieu van der Poel. His plan for the day, attack after three kilometres. There were six guys in pursuit. At a certain point, they were only 40 seconds behind him, but they never made the catch. And this is how we end up, with a solo win of 174 kilometres, four hours of solo riding. Mathieu van der Poel writes history. The longest solo win of the century. Chapeau. Magnus Backstedt is... Yeah. Give me applause. Round of applause. That is special. It is special. Most definitely. Now we're going for that second place. They have, have they caught Honoré? It's hard to see whether this is, nope, they haven't just yet. Honoré going for second place. But just like van der Poel, he was in that peloton on day three, where the GC went out of the window for both this man from Denmark and for van der Poel. But van der Poel comes away from the Tour of Luxembourg with two stage wins, a mountain jersey, and a result today that is going in the history books. And that is a fine preparation for a very important race that comes a week from now in Montreal. Honoré finishes in second on this fifth and final stage. And Pepijn Rijnderink, who had his first professional win here two days ago, finishes third. And the overall winner of the Skoda Tour of Luxembourg is Davide Piganzoli. Well, Mathieu van der Poel has got nothing to prove. He wins the fifth and final stage. Ahead of Honoré, Rijnderink, Piganzoli, Naruka, Vergier, Kroondersen, Gagignard and the rest of the top 10 already moving away from our screens here. Mathieu, what got into you today? No idea. It wasn't the plan to go from the start. But I found myself all by myself. And I just kept on rolling. What did you say when the gap widened like that? Did you immediately understand that it was the only solution to go all the way? Yes, when you saw that the gap was getting bigger, did you know the only solution was to go all the way? I thought those six chases would come back, but yeah, the gap was going up. But yeah, the gap was going up. Then I just had to go all the way to the line. You were the biggest against the wind in history. Does that also give you good confidence for next week in Montreal? I hope so. My legs were incredible today. I had amazing legs today. In the past days, I didn't have the legs I really wanted to. Maybe trained a little bit too much. How do you feel about the Tour of Luxembourg? Two stage wins, but mentally, what matters? All the sensations today are important. I like coming here, it's a nice race. I'm happy to win the final stage. Congratulations. And I won two stages in the end. Yeah, a nice premium of €1,000 for being first across that intermediate sprint. On the Popeye-Biac, 24km from the line.