Belgian cycling star Wout van Aert has claimed overall victory at the Tour of Denmark for the second time in his career, adding the five-day race to a palmares that now stands at 57 professional wins. Danish rider Rasmus Søjberg Pedersen won the final stage on Sunday, taking the sprint in the 126-kilometre fifth stage from Køge to Rødovre, a route that runs through the eastern part of the Danish island of Zealand.

The closing stage was marred by a large crash in the finishing straight, but Pedersen — who races for Decathlon in his regular professional capacity but competed this week under the Danish national team — stayed out of trouble and finished well clear of German sprinter Max Walscheid of Lidl-Trek. Van Aert, riding for Visma-Lease a Bike, crossed the line in eleventh place, which was more than enough to secure the overall title.

The victory marks a triumphant return for the 31-year-old Van Aert, who missed this year's Tour de France after suffering an elbow infection. He made his comeback at the Tour of Denmark and immediately underlined his form by winning each of the first three stages of the race, before an early breakaway specialist ended that winning streak in stage four. He nevertheless held enough of an advantage in the general classification to take the final blue jersey.

Van Aert first won the Tour of Denmark back in 2018, a race that was only his seventh career victory at the time. The gap between those two successes illustrates the scale of his subsequent rise: he has since gone on to claim fifty more wins across all disciplines, including major Classics and Grand Tour stage victories. This latest success is his fourth overall stage race title.

The result will be welcomed as a significant confidence boost ahead of the second half of the cycling season, confirming that Van Aert has recovered fully from the injury that kept him out of the sport's biggest annual event.