Jelle Wallays of Topsport Vlaanderen has won the 70th Dwars Door Vlaanderen classic race in Belgium.
With Milan- San Remo over with, it was back to the Belgian classic races and first up with the Dwars Door Vlaanderen race over 200.2km from Roeselare to Waregem.
After a minute's silence to mark the passing of those who lost their lives when a German Wings plane crashed in France yesterday, 167 riders rolled out of Roeselare and eleven riders in Jonathan Castroviejo, Joey Rosskopf, Sean De Bie, Tom Van Asbroeck, Sven Erik Bystrom, Alexandre Pichot, Giuseppe Fonzi, Michael Reihs, Vladimir Isaychev, Jay Thomson and Brian van Goethem quickly formed a break.
This did not last and after Giacomo Nizzolo had abandoned, following a crash. That was the second crash of the day with the first having forced Markel Irizar and Marco Haller out of the race.
On a wet, horrible sort of day, the riders covered forty seven kilometres in the first hour and after crossing the finish line for the second time, it was time to start on the sections of climbs. The first was the Nieuwe Kwaremont with 112kms to go.
As they started on that climb, eight riders in Boris Dron (Wanty-Grouop Gobert), Jelle Walays (Topsport Vlaanderen), Adrien Petit (Cofidis), Brian Van Goethem (Roompot), Gert Dockx (Lotto-Soudal) and Leigh Howard (Orica-GreenEdge), Mathias Brandle (IAM Cycling) and Ruben Zepuntke (Cannondale) formed a new break which took a lead of 2.10 on the peloton.
Martin Mortensen, who had earlier crashed, was able to bridge to the leaders who were 2.40 clear going through Oudenaarde with just less than one hundred kilometres left.
A big crash split the peloton and the front group started to go after the nine out front. With eighty kilometres remaining, they were only twenty two seconds ahead.
A mechanical forced Adrien Petit to drop out of the group of escapers and he was replaced by Alex Kirsch before Leigh Howard became the first of the escapers to be caught by the peloton, so Jelle Wallays went away on his own and was first over the Eikenberg whilst back down the road, Lotto Jumbo only had three riders of their eight man left after Jos van Emden, Mike Teunissen and Bertjan Lindeman crashed and Maarten Tjallingii and Rick Flens decided they had had enough for one day.
Wallays was 37 seconds clear with sixty kilometres remaining but world champion Michael Kwiaitkowski of Etixx Quick Step was coming up fast and he joined Wallays along with Van Baarle and Edward Theuns, a rider being tipped for big things in the next few years.
They were chased by Lars Boom, Sven Erik Bystrom, Matthias Bandle , Nikolas Maes, Lars Bak, Marcus Berghardt and Cyril Lemoine with this group seventeen seconds behind the Kwiatkowski group and twenty three seconds ahead of a group led by Porsev of Katusha.
The two chasing groups came together and a new chasing group of Nikolas Maes and Guillaume Van Keirsbulck (Etixx - Quick-Step), Andrey Amador (Movistar Team), Matti Breschel (Tinkoff-Saxo), Jempy Drucker (BMC Racing Team), Tiesj Benoot and Jens Debusschere (Lotto Soudal), Vyacheslav Kuznetsov and Alexey Tsatevich (Team Katusha), Cyril Lemoine (Cofidis, Solutions Credits), Oscar Gatto (Androni Giocattoli) formed.
Kwiatkowski's group had a lead of forty four seconds going into the final twenty kilometres and were able to keep that lead all the way to the final kilometre.
Jelle Wallays of Topsport Vlaanderen - Baloise took on the other front three and passed them to take the win ahead of team mate Edward Theuns, Dylan Van Baarle of Cannondale-Garmin, Michal Kwiatkowski of Etixx - Quick-Step, Guillaume Van Keirsbulck of Etixx - Quick-Step, Tiesj Benoot of Lotto Soudal, Cyril Lemoine of Cofidis, Jens Debusschere of Lotto Soudal, Nikolas Maes of Etixx - Quick-Step and Aleksei Tsatevich of Katusha.