30th March – Gent-Wevelgem Men: Ypres – Wevelgem
Cobbled classic action continued at Gent-Wevelgem; where the peloton were set to battle it out over the cobbled climbs, dirt roads, and many wind-swept kilometres of Belgian countryside. A break established itself early into the day and built up a four minute lead, but in the peloton chaos started going through De Moeren; where the wind played havoc. John Degenkolb, Sean Flynn, Tobias Lund Andresen and Casper van Uden represented Team Picnic PostNL in the reduced front peloton.
From there it became a race of attrition as things thinned down further over each obstacle, and unfortunately Lund Andresen punctured out of the peloton over the last dirt road. Flynn and Van Uden then positioned Degenkolb who held on over the top of the last climb, as the race charged towards the finish in Wevelgem. Pedersen held on to win solo, while Degenkolb gave it everything he had in the sprint to the line, finishing just outside the top ten on the day.
Degenkolb reflected: “It was a typical Gent-Wevelgem. It’s a special race with a special character and you feel the stress right from the beginning. I think we did a really nice meeting yesterday and had a good team spirit today. We raced point to point and our first very important point, like everyone else, was De Moeren where the crosswind started. We could really use the whole team there, which was really nice; to feel that whole support from everyone. From that moment on I was in the first echelon, but things came back together a little. In the end we still could have been there with one or two guys more, Tobias had a flat tyre for example, but in these races something always happens. In the end I suffered through the pain and tried to do the best sprint possible.”