Welcome to all and let’s enjoy the C2 cobbles opener Gent – Wevelgem today! A lot of political struggles in the city of Ghent in the last weeks, so let’s make sure to get out of here quickly and focus on the cycling today. Looking at the favourites list of the organisation, the focus is mostly on the cobblers. We do know, however, that in the past the winner here usually wasn’t the best or purest cobbler. Let’s find out what happens today!
At the beginning, twelve riders got away, but SEE Turtles, Würth, Trans and Duvel worked together to bring them back rather quickly. After that, another breakaway forms, including even more riders. 19 to be precise. The names? Reddish, Svab, Scott, Loland, Berger, Guavita, Verstrynge, Canal, Nys, Sillankorva, Weinstein, Albalooshi, Gougeard, Kuypers, Klahan, Ballerstedt, Orins, Crowley and Le Berre. Same teams working in the peloton.
The maximum gap was six minutes, but with around 100 km to go the peloton started their ascents of the Kemmelberg, and we see the deficit decreasing now, while the leaders are getting shattered into different groups, so is the peloton. With around 80 km to go only 65 riders remain in the peloton, at around 3’30” of the leaders. Welten struggling, but holding on for now.
Next ascent of the Kemmelberg, no more struggles? Havik attacks in the peloton, as Zhupa, Nielsen and Welten try to follow! At the top of the Kemmel it’s clear their attack leads nowhere, meanwhile also interesting to note former winner Saber has been dropped and is already far behind the peloton now. 65 km to go!
60 km left as nine leaders start the Kemmelberg ascent for the penultimate time. They have 1’40” over a peloton of 49 riders. The nine names up front are Svab, Klahan, Kuypers, Crowley, Le Berre Verstrynge, Nys, Ballerstedt and Gougeard. The two other riders in this picture are riders being doubled (Geary and Caiza).
50 km to go and another attack! This time it’s Ringheim, last year’s winner Breen, Teggart and David on the move. Nareklishvili working to close the gap. Only rider left in front of the breakaway is Le Berre, whereas Svab is trying to follow the four attackers.
The Würth Georgian did his work and caught everyone ahead on the final ascent of the Kemmelberg, which also lead to him being dropped after his work. Also dropped and no longer in the front group of 33 riders are Peng and Havik.
Attacks are following now, including Hofstetter, teammate Darbinyan, Van Lerberghe, Ringheim and now also Zepuntke, but with 20 km to go, nobody really got away, mostly due to the work of Air New Zealand.
Is this the right move? A group of nine forms with 14 km left, they quickly gather thirty seconds over the others! The nine up front are David, Darbinyan, Zepuntke, Van Lerberghe, Ringheim, Teggart, Insausti, Moulingui and Orue!
David still with a 30” lead and 11 km to go, but the other eight are brought back by De Witte!
Air New Zealand and Duvel try to get him back, but instead we see Darbinyan and Teggart as the only riders able to make the jump forward! Will this be the podium? They now have fourty seconds over Moulingui and an additional thirty seconds over the rest of the peloton with only 2 km to the finish line!
They hold on, and it’s David who takes the win! Theoretically not the best sprinter out of these three, but theory doesn’t count after a race of 250 km with several ascents of the Kemmelberg and a lot of attacks from everyone! PCT rider Teggart is second ahead of Armenian champion Darbinyan!
Welten sprints to fourth ahead of De Witte (5th), Van Lerberghe (6th) and Nielsen (7th).
The rest of the top-10 is completed by Kaislavuo (8th), Habimana (9th) and Insausti (10th). Ringheim (12th), Zepuntke (14th), Orue (21st), Moulingui (27th) and Richardson (32nd) disappointed, even though they always knew it was not going to be easy to score big today. Last year’s winner Breen crossed the line in 28th and missed out on points, but with some nice depth his team will still be rather happy today.
