Jon Dibben takes second place in the U23 Tour of Flanders

Jon Dibben took Great Britain’s best ever result in the U23 Tour of Flanders with second place from a reduced sprint in Oudenaarde.

The 22 year-old points race world champion jumped across to a lead group of riders inside the closing kilometres of the 167km race but was beaten by Slovenia’s David Per to the line.

Gabriel Cullaigh finished in the chasing bunch in 19^th while Tao Geoghegan Hart, who won the Trofeo Piva in Italy last weekend, finished in the same group to take 22^nd.

“It was good race, I’m happy personally but the way the boys worked for me today, I should have won,” Dibben told Cycling Weekly.

“There was a group of five that went away over the last climb with a lap to go and they were still just away and Tao pretty much did the last lap on the front for me, and I sat behind him.

“We caught half of it on the last climb and some just stayed away. It was only about 50 metres to the group, I hit out with three kilometres to go, me and a French lad [Corentin Ermenault, third] got across with about 200m to go. I tried to get out of the saddle but he [Per] came round.”

Behind the scenes with Team Wiggins 

The U23 Tour of Flanders is run over many of the same roads in the Flemish Ardennes as those in last weekend's elite races, however this year the event did not include any of the region's iconic cobbled climbs.

The race is an important augur for future talent, with recent winners including current professional riders Salvatore Puccio (2011, Sky), Rick Zabel (2013, BMC) and Dylan Groenewegen (2014, LottoNL-Jumbo).

The result continues a rich vein of form for Dibben, who won the time trial stage of the Triptyque des Monts et Chateaux and finished second overall on April 3 after winning his first world title on the track in early March.

The Wiggins trade team rider will line up in GB colours at next weekend’s ZLM Tour U23 race in the Netherlands before racing the Tour de Yorkshire and the Tour of California.

“I’m feeling really good, I think I’m going the best I’ve ever gone,” Dibben added.

“After the track worlds I didn’t have too much of a break, I kept pedalling away, thinking of this and Triptyque and the early season U23 races.”