A day many cycling fans have been waiting for and the kick off of Opening Weekend with Omloop Het Nieuwsblad. Team dsm-firmenich PostNL set out with a plan to ride well as a group so that they were represented in the break, never knowing what might happen later in the race with the cobbled chaos. Rotating well through the moves, it was eventually Sean Flynn and Frank van den Broek who infiltrated the move of nine. Building up a gap of over four minutes, the race kicked off incredibly early in the peloton with over 120 kilometres still to race as teams split things in the crosswinds. A 23 rider group bridged to the Team dsm-firmenich PostNL duo, and the gap held steady at around one minute for a long time. Eventually, things would regroup with the peloton that included Pavel Bittner and Niklas Märkl making the catch. Things split for good on the famous Muur though, with the team digging deep but unable to follow at the front; with Van den Broek ultimately the first rider home on the day.
Van den Broek said: “We started the race very well with Sean and me in the early breakaway. When the peloton split into echelons a 30 man group joined us and from then it never really slowed down. Unfortunately, we were not strong enough to hold on over the Muur and go for a result but we leave the race motivated for tomorrow.”