Tom Van Asbroeck was beaten by the smallest of margins in today's Nationale Sluitingsprijs. However, the result was enough to win the UCI Europe Tour.

Going into today's Nationale Sluitingsprijs, Tom Van Asbroeck was equal on points with Sonny Colbrelli. As the tiebreaker was the number of victories, the Belgian needed to score points in today's race to pass the Italian in the standings.

Van Asbroeck finished second in the bunch sprint which was enough to take the win in the season-long competition. In fact, he was very close to the win in the race too as he was beaten by Jens Debusschere in a photo finish.

"I'm very happy to have won the Europe Tour," he told Directvelo. "This was the main objective today and in recent weeks. I can be happy with second place that gave me the necessary points. The last four kilometres here are straight so it's hard to stay in front. But I was lucky to have two teammates, Edward Theuns and Michael Van Stayen. They worked perfectly for me to stay in an ideal position. Unfortunately I did not win. It was very close.