Laurens Sweeck (Crelan-Corendon) prevailed in a fantastic last-lap battle to claim the victory in the Superprestige in Diegem.
Niels Vandeputte extended his lead in the series with second place while European champion Thibau Nys (Baloise Trek) couldn’t clip in after the run-up just before the sprint and faded to third.
“Every win is important,” Sweeck said. “Yesterday in Besançon I had a really bad day – today it’s a big difference and I’m really happy to take the victory.”
Nys and Sweeck traded blows in the fiercely contested final lap, each rider making multiple passes to try to hold the lead, but Sweeck won out heading into the run-up that came just before the paved finishing straight.
“I knew you had to be at the front in the last lap,” Sweeck said. “We were just sprinting the whole lap – it was a crazy last two minutes.”
There was a fierce battle for the hole shot that left Lars van der Haar nearly missing the turn on the slick pavement. A crash behind him held up Thibau Nys as the charging bunch was led onto the dirt by Tibor del Grosso (Alpecin-Deceuninck).
US champion Andrew Strohmeyer had a terrific start and showed off his technical skills with a daring attack in the tricky off-camber section, but he faded back by the end of the lap.
An attack from Sweeck pulled away a group with Michael Vanthourenhout, Del Grosso and Felipe Orts, but more riders latched on by the end of lap 3.
Vanthourenhout attacked on the off-camber, stretching out of 15 chasers led by Nys, who recovered from his interrupted start.
Series leader Niels Vandeputte (Alpecin-Deceuninck) joined teammate Del Grosso and Sweeck in bridging across to Vanthourenhout – but then Vanthourenhout had to stop in the pits after having a problem with his shoes.
Vandeputte moved to the front with Sweeck and Nys as the chasing group started to show cracks. Del Grosso and Orts lost ground on the climbing section but were still only a few seconds behind as Nys led across the line with four laps to go.
Vanthourenhout made an impressive chase back into seventh place, latching onto Ryan Kamp (Alpecin-Deceuninck Devo) and getting to the front group before the end of the lap – making a lead group of six with Orts fighting to get on the wheels just behind.
The sand pit divided the leaders into two groups, with Nys, Sweeck and Vanthourenhout the strongest.
Nys began pushing the pace in earnest with three to go, but wasn’t able to make a difference. As Nys sat up, Vandeputte made it across to the trio first, then midway into the lap the chasers, led by Eli Iserbyt (Pauwels Sauzen-Bingoal) bridged up, making it ten lead riders heading into the penultimate lap with the addition of Vandeputte, Del Grosso, Kamp, Lars van der Haar (Baloise-Trek), Orts and Jente Michels (Alpecin-Deceuninck).
Early in the penultimate lap, Vanthourenhout looked as if he crashed off-camera and Sweeck opened up a sizeable gap on the rest of the group. Nys led the chase and was just about on the wheel of the Crelan-Corendon rider by the bell lap along with Vandeputte.
It was Vandeputte’s turn to attack at the start of the lap in defence of his lead in the series. He briefly opened up a gap on Sweeck on the paved climb where Nys sprinted across the gap to join them, making it three leaders once again.
Nys made a beautiful pass on Sweeck heading into the dirt climb – a move his father would be proud of – and then attacked out of the sand pit to try to hold a gap.
Sweeck made a pass on the flyover but Nys got back around only to have Sweeck get in front again before the run-up.
Nys couldn’t clip in and not only lost the sprint to Sweeck, but also had to watch as Vandeputte came past to steal second.
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