The first total synthesis of enantiopure methyl (1R,2R,4S)-2-amino-4-hydroxycyclopentanecarboxylate was carried out according to our recent novel strategy for the transformation of nitrohexofuranoses into cyclopentylamines, which is based on an intramolecular cyclisation leading to 2-oxabicyclo[2.2.1]heptane derivatives. It was observed that one of the substrate anomers produces an elimination rather than a cyclisation reaction. These and other differences in the reaction paths for this key step were rationalised by means of molecular mechanism based calculations.