French rider Thomas Voeckler won the De Brabantse Pijl - La Flèche Brabanonne this afternoon.
The traditional midweek curtain raiser for Sunday's Amstel Gold race included a strong field with the likes of Voeckler, Philippe Gilbert and Andy Schleck all competing in this 194.9km event from Leuven - Overijse.
The race had started in sunshine but there was heavy rain and this caused a number of crashes, one of which took down Andy Schleck with 69kms to go.
Daniel Schorn (Team NetApp) had been out in front for a long time but he was caught just before the start of the final lap by Voeckler who rode away to finish a minute and eleven seconds ahead of Oscar Freire and win in a time of 4:49:07.
Ireland's Phil Deignan came in 41st.