Another northern classic for the PT division teams, but there is not much 'northern' about the weather today. Beautiful weather here in Flanders and we're hoping for a beautiful race as well.
The first attack to enter the breakaway is launched by Hoole and joined by Antonijevic and Dewulf.
More riders join the breakaway. First Cannister then a group with Lampawog, Becis and Mraouni.
The breakaway group swells to 12 riders with the additions of Kamberaj, Rickaert, Kooistra, Gunnlaugsson and Hennessy.
Behind them the peloton was willing to let go of another big group.
Swift
Kiskonen
Arissol
Nieuwenhuis
Chiu
Honore
Weinstein
Oliveira
Pons
So we now have a group of 21 riders in the breakaway. They hold a 3'34'' advantage over the peloton as they tackle the opening cobbled section of the race.
The peloton is mostly being led by the riders from Aker, Grieg and Tinkoff.
We are about a 100 km into the race, near halfway which means it's time for the mid race attacks that come from the peloton. Van den Berg, Sibilla and Kolev behind are trying to bridge across to the breakaway which is 2 minutes ahead of them.
Vanspeybrouck has joined this group as has Potts, who's really eager and is already pushing forward towards the breakaway.
A few cobbled and non cobbled bergs in succession also take their toll on the peloton as we see fractures beginning to show. The 2nd group here of course makes it back to the front.
Karatzios is another attacker trying to preempt the accelerations in the peloton and move forward now. Meanwhile Sibilla has already moved back.
ELCO double down and send more manpower up the road with Kortsidakis, but bridging to the breakaway is proving no easy task. We see the Trans duo are a bit ahead, but still a minute away.
3 more riders join this 3rd group on the road. It's Meiler, Bolivar and Menten. They're about a minute ahead of the peloton.
85 km to go. The Trans are back in what is now the 2nd group. They just finished a steep paved berg which was the launch pad for Chokri, Salzmann and Baugnies. 12 riders are now sitting between the breakaway and the peloton.
Kolev and Van den Berg are back in the peloton, if we can still call it that as it's really breaking up now.
With still 70 km left the bigger names already losing contact are the Evonik duo of Polanc and Neilands and Tiller.
Karatzios and Potts are now back with the favourites. Up ahead there are still two groups each with a minute's advantage over the other.
Vanspeybrouck has dropped back and the same is about to happen with Kortsidakis.
At 60 km to go now. Original escapee Antonijevic is about to be caught.
Finally a few of the late attackers have reached the original breakaway which is now 22 riders strong. If I'm not mistaken Salzmann, Bolivar, Chokri, Menten and Meiler have made it across.
The latest berg also sees Trentin and Van Hooydonck get distanced. They make it back though, so maybe just a positional mistake.
50 km left, there will be loads of short, sharp hills over the next 30-40 km which should force the final selection. We have news on the radio that Polanc has made it back into the group of favourites which is 1'22'' behind the breakaway.
Interesting tactics for Tinkoff today as we see Senechal working at the front. Kamyshev might be their choice for today.
I don't how we missed this, but I guess when trying to cover as much as possible. Big news is Wisniowski has been gapped! Now he has a lot of teammates with him, so hopefully for him he can get back.
Stokbro did his best, but now it's down to the Pole to make up the rest. Of course the others know what's up and aren't making this easy.
The favourite are 35 km from the finish, at this point Wisniowski has made it back, but he's certainly had to spend quite some energy for that.
We haven't had time to check on the very front of the race, but we now see that a trio of Swift, Oliveira and Rickaert are leading the race. Then we see Nieuwenhuis followed by a group containing Salzmann, Chokri and Meiler as the most notable riders.
Van Hooydonck has now been dropped on this flat cobbled section. He's leaning on Robeet to help him.
Senechal has been working for a while now and with 23 km to go, he's cracked. Jumping on that immediately are Kasperkiewicz, Gerts and Theuns!
Clearly Tinkoff were not prepared for this, but now Kamyshev is chasing after the trio. Van Gestel is the only domestique left behind and is now chasing for his leader Pedersen.
Losing contact after those accelerations are Teunissen, Spengler, Zepuntke, Altur, Vanbilsen and Polanc.
As expected Van Gestel wasn't able to give much, so Per has taken over chasing duties and he's dropped Trentin, Senechal and Ferreira in the process.
Kamyshev has joined the other trio. They have dropped the final remnants of the breakaway and they hold a 38'' gap over the group that contains Per, Pedersen, Summerhill, Wisniowski and Debesay, who seems to be on a good day to hang with the very best.
15 km to go and Pedersen has been dropped from the chasing group! Looks like he ran out of power on the last real hill, it's mostly flat more here on.
Per feels he is the strongest rider in the chase group and he goes solo as he starts the final cobbled section. The 4 leaders are 45'' ahead though.
Meanwhile the leaders seem to be working well together as they start the final 10 km.
Debesay has been terrific so far, but he can't follow Wisniowski and Summerhill as they chase after Per.
Less than 4 km left. Per hasn't been able to make a dent in the gap, which is not unexpected, it is 1 vs 4 afterall. But he has opened a decent gap to the other two. Looks like we'll have a sprint between 4 riders for the victory.
Here we go, 600 m to go! Theuns is the best sprinter here and he's in a perfect position.
But he cracks at the very, very end! Floris Gerts is the winner of E3 Prijs! Kasperkiewicz even takes 2nd place with Theuns 3rd, Kamyshev 4th.
Per looked really strong today and maybe he could've fought for the win if he didn't miss the crucial move. Still a good ride for him to finish 5th.
Wisniowski didn't have the best day, but he salvaged 6th place at the end.
Summerhill is 7th.
Then it's Teunissen who is the strongest in a bigger group to finish 8th ahead of Senechal and a special mention to Rickaert who was in the breakaway all day long and finished in 10th place. That certainly has to be the highlight of his career.
E3 Prijs 
