Belgium's Wout van Aert, right, wins the Amstel Gold race on a photo finish from Britain's Tom Pidcock, left ©Getty Images

Belgium’s Wout van Aert raised his hand in triumph as he and Britain’s Tom Pidcock crossed the line together at the end of a novel running of the Amstel Gold Race - but it took careful examination of the photo finish evidence before his win was confirmed.

Van Aert, riding for Jumbo-Visma, crossed in 5 hours 3 mins 27sec, millimetres ahead of his Ineos Grenadiers rival, after they and Germany’s Max Schachmann, who finished two seconds behind them, had broken clear of the pack with 12 kilometres to go.

Australia’s Michael Matthews, riding for Team BikeExchange, won the sprint for fourth place ahead of Spain’s Alejandro Valverde, riding for Spa, with France’s world champion Julian Alaphilippe, in the livery of Deceuninck-QuickStep, a place further back.

The race had got the traditional Classics season underway on an unfamiliar 16.9 kilometre looped course around the finishing venue of Valkenburg, with the usual twisting route through Limburg being avoided because of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The earlier women’s race was won for the first time by 33-year-old Dutch rider Marianne Vos.

The London 2012 road race champion and three-times world road race champion, riding for Team Jumbo-Visma, finished the 116.3km course, seven laps of a circuit around Valkenburg, in 3:00.20.

Her compatriot Demi Vollering of Team SD Worx finished a wheel’s length behind her, with a third Dutch rider, 2019 world road race champion Annemiek van Vleuten, next to cross the line.

The Dutch trio were in the group that hunted down leaders Elisa Borghini of Trek-Segafredo and Kasia Niewiadoma of Canyon-SRAM within the final kilometre after the pair had passed the final summit two kilometres from the finish.

"I expected a hard race, but it was even harder than I expected," said Vos after the finish.

"Demi came really close in the end, but I still had a little advantage."

The Netherlands’ Rio 2016 road race champion Anna van der Breggen had recovered from injury problems to take part, but finished eight minutes and 46 seconds back in 53rd place.

The 2020 edition of the Amstel Gold Race was cancelled due to the global health crisis.