Jan Bakelandts has been Belgium's main classics man in the Protour this year, whereas the outstanding classics man in the CTour for Belgium is Phillipe Gilbert. These two certainly will not have it all their way with Monfort, Devolder, Nuyens, Hermans, Scheirlinckx, Steegmans and Venendert leading the challenge.
The parcours:
is a 14 km circuit that has 17 rotations, with a nasty 6 - 7% 1.5km climb near the beginning. Known for their attacking riding the Belgians do not hang around with a very active opening. By the end of the first lap we have two riders some 30 seconds clear of the peleton
Eijssen (Festina) and De Vocht (Pearl) are the men, but they are not given too much luxury as more attacks from the peleton come along as Debussclere (Carmuese) bridges up to them with six others on the climb.
By the end of the second lap a group of seven leaders has formed, ironically the attacker drops back to the peleton with De Vocht from the original breakaway. The seven riders here are Eijssen (Festina), Decouttere (Falcon), Nooytens (Lipton), Vermote (Pokerstars), Libert (Lego), Cappelle (Vespa) and Paquet (Wiggle).
On the third lap four more riders come across, it is Carmuese again who instigate this obviously desperate to be active here.
It is Beatse this time with Vengenecten (Bimbo Nutella), Curfs (Wikipedia) and De Vocht (Pearl Adidas). This makes a group of 11 and by the beginning of the 4th lap (of 17) they have a healthy 2 minute lead.
With only 74 riders at the start, this type of big breakaway needs to be monitored and it is Pendletons who are doing the work on the front with Sijmens the donkey for Gilbert.
With 9 laps to go the breakaway have slowly eased the lead to about three minutes, it has been well controlled but others begin to sense a chance to put pressure on the Pendletons outfit. Key riders begin to attack the peleton and bridge to the breakaway.
Ghyllebert (Mercedes) brings Cornu (Jack Wolfskin) and Nuyens (Domina Vacanze) across on Lap 8. On lap 11 Baugniers(Lipton) comes across with Roelandts (Carmuese) and Steegmans also comes acriss here too. This makes 17 riders up front and Pendletons are joines by Pearl Adidas in trying to close this down.
With 5 laps to go lead 17 have 1.20, but despite the chase this does not come down in the next 14 kilometers as the gap is exactly the same with 4 laps to go. The Pendletons and Pearl domestiques begins to drift back in the peleton as Monfort orders his LEGO riders forward.
Up front meanwhile six riders (Ghyllebert, Nuyens, Steegmans, Cornu, Roelandts and Baugnies) push on away from the other breakaways.
The six have about 50 seconds as they hit the three laps to go position but Claeys (LEGO) powers the peleton back to the break on the climb. It's all together then, but the Lego mans hilly power is now distancing several in the peleton.
By the time we get to the end of this circuit we have just 28 riders left in the front group, as we get to two laps (34km) to go.
All our favourites are here, towards the front of the pack as we hit the climb are Claeys and Monfort (LEGO), Nuyens and Vanendert (Domina Vacanze), Devolder (Phillips) and Bakelandts(Pearl Adidas). But on the climb it is the big favourite and defending champion Gilbert who launches a very strong move.
The other favourites have to respond, first Bakelandts goes and then Devolder/Monfort before finally Hermans/ Van Huffel/Scheirlinckx/Vanendert.
Bakelandts is unable to bridge to Gilbert though as he is caught first by the two behind and then the four. We get some paralysis here as no-one really wants to commit fully to the chase, of course Gilbert up front siezes the oppurtunity. He loves this sort of break and powers quickly to a minutes gap.
On the final circuit the riders in the seven behind seem more concerned with attacking each other. Bakelandts and Monfort do get away, but not before Gilbert has built a race winning 1.20 lead. Gilbert takes a comfortable Belgian championships.
Bakelandts does outsprint Monfort for second, both though had their teams working for them but didn't have the strength to match Gilbert. Behind then lone wolf Devolder takes 4th ahead of Vanendert.
Last year Dominique Cornu took this title following a year in which he dominated time trials in the CTour. This year the Belgian TT champion has not been able to dominate in such a fashion up against riders like Rogers and Zabriskie in the pro ranks. However he was part of the Jack Wolfskin eight man team that took the Team Time test and managed to improve his Worlds ITT position from 11th in 2010 to 9th in 2011.
He is a very strong favourite here and his main competition is stage racer Stijn Devolder along with TT specilists Goddeart and Kaisen. The only chance you would give them is if we get a windy day and that hasn't occurred so likely they will be battling for podiums unless Cornu has a bad day.
Early starters are dominated by the full teams of Pokerstars, Carmuese and Festina. Pokerstars and Festina of course sponsored some Belgiums this year for the U23 division and one of those names Vandousselaere was a stand out perfomer. He is the first to set a decent time as he and teammate Van Impe ran each other close over the course.
Vandousselaere 18.34 46.46 1.07.42
Van Impe 18.36 46.55 1.07.43
It should be interesting to see if anyone will snap up the young Vandousselaere in the upcoming transfer season. His hopes of having the national time trial jersey are dashed pretty early on as one of the key contenders is sent out early by Festina. Goddeart comes through and sets some pretty formidable targets.
Goddeart 18.15 45.56 1.06.28
This completely blows the solid Pokerstars riders out of the water so to speak and it is a question of waiting to see what the other big TTers do to see how good a time that was. Whilst we wait for the big guns a couple of other decent riders against the clock post their times. First we have sprinter cum cobbler Gert Steegmans and then Festina super domestique Jurgen Van Goolan.
Steegmans 18.42 46.58 1.07.48
Van Goolan 18.28 46.06 1.06.40
A very good time from Van Goolan running his teammate Goddeart close as Steegmans solid effort places him provisionally in the top five. But next comes the reigning champion Dominique Cornu...
It is no surprise to see the champion blitz through the course setting new bests as he manages to clock a final time the best part of two minutes quicker than the previous best. You could say that Cornu was on a cracker here.
Cornu 18.01 44.40 1.04.43
It seems unlikely that anyone can live with that, the battle behind seems to mainly for the podium, unless the wind can pick up. It started off at a reading of '3' and has now raised to '8'. But alas it drops down to virtually nothing as first classics men Vanendert and Gilbert roll through.
No doubt about it Hoste best years are behind him and he slots in behind current third place Van Goolan by two seconds. However we still have two strong TTers left in Kaisen (Wikipedia) and Devolder (Philips), first the Wikipedia man comes through.
Kaisen 18.11 45.37 1.06.09
He moves to provisional second, still way over a minute off of Cornu's pace and he will watch Devolders time carefully.
Devolder 18.03 45.23 1.05.51
Even Stijn cannot get anywhere near to Cornu who has been absolutely dominant toda, though at least Devolder justifies his place as Belgium's number two time trialler comfortably beating Kaisen and Goddeart.
