Quick Step’s Elia Viviani has won the Driedaagse Brugge-De Panne race.
The 202.4 km race had its start in Bruges and its finish in De Panne and had five hills, all of which in the first half of a race which takes the riders 3 times through De Moeren including in the two laps of 25.7 km at the end.
Aqua Blue Sports Conor Dunne got himself into the break along with Tanner Putt, Sean Bennett and Brian Van Goetham and with 77kms to go, they were 4.10 ahead.
There were a few splits in the peloton but the gap to the break which now included David Boucher and Yiber Safer was down to 1.30 with 45kms to go.
Tanner Putt was brought back by the fifty to sixty strong peloton which was only thirty seconds ahead going into the final twenty-five kilometres.
The break managed to stay away and there were still three riders clear of what was left of the pack with 5.4kms to go.
However, Bora Hansgrohe worked to bring everyone still in the race back together with four kilometres left.
Quick Step moved forward and it came down to a sprint with Elia Viviani of Quick Step taking the win ahead of Pascal Ackermann, Bora-Hansgrohe, Jasper Philipsen Hagens Berman Axeon, Baptiste Planckaert Katusha-Alpecin and Jens Debusschere of Lotto Soudal.
British rider Adam Blythe of Aqua Blue Sports finished ninth.
Viviani said about his win: "Personally, it’s the first in Europe this year. I’ve won in Australia and in the Emirates and I’ve had some placings in Paris-Nice, but the condition is really good. I really want to end the first part of my season really well and after that I will think about the Giro. Winning in Belgium with a Belgian team is always beautiful and it’s a good start to the next few important weeks in Belgium for this team and we will try to continue in this way."
Source: DSG
