A fan favourite race with its multiple dirt and gravel roads, Tro-Bro Léon is often a hard day in the saddle where puncheurs and classics riders come to the fore. From the start Team dsm-firmenich PostNL rode well as a unit, keeping safe and holding a good position for the opening gravel sections with some good teamwork by Benjamin Peatfield and Axel Källberg. However, a series of unfortunate punctures, mechanicals and crashes for John Degenkolb, Nils Eekhoff, Casper van Uden and Sean Flynn saw the team drop from the leading groups at a key moment at around 60 kilometres to go. Trying to fight back, the team rallied as much as they could, with Flynn making contact in a chase group that included eventual race winner De Lie. However, another bit of misfortune in the finale saw Flynn crash himself, losing contact with the groups, before riding it into the line.
Speaking afterwards Flynn said: “Today was a tough day out – we were riding well as a team with a good position coming into the key sectors but a run of flat tyres and other mechanicals put all of us out of the leading groups. I was able to keep fighting back to the peloton at one moment but was running pretty empty by that point. Another flat tyre and crash in the final was unfortunate and rubbed salt into the wounds of an already hard day out.”