Lars van der Haar raced to an impressive solo victory at the penultimate round of the UCI World Cup at Heusden-Zolder today, after attacking early in the race and then riding the final two-thirds alone at the front of the race.

By the end of the race van der Haar led by 45 seconds over World Cup leader Kevin Pauwels (Sunweb – Napoleon Games Cycling Team).

After a strong start to the race, van der Haar used his road racing strengths to put in a big attack on the flat tarmac section and soon pulled out a decent lead ahead of the field, putting his strong technical skills to good use. He never looked in danger of slipping back and letting his lead go, and in the final few laps he carried on applying the pressure and pulled out his lead over the chasers.

After the podium duties, van der Haar said: “It was a beautiful victory today, and luck was on my side this time. I have been in a good shape recently and I felt strong and was able to finish it off. I saw an opportunity when Kevin Pauwels was behind and there were four of us ahead. I hoped that the group could work together but that didn’t happen so, I thought I would just go for myself with a big attack. I don’t normally do this type of attack but it worked.

“It was a hard race, hard at places where you did not expected it, and if you are alone it was even harder. On one point I thought that Kevin come back to me, but I heard that he was also suffering behind so I gave everything and could take some more time on him and that worked out, gave me confidence to finish it off.”

Van der Haar is now second in the World Cup standings, 80 points behind Pauwels. "Long time ago I stopped focusing on that final victory, especially after I didn't start in Koksijde (where he was sick, ed.). Kevin is the deserved final winner. I do not see how he can miss that final victory."