Vandewalle wins Driedaagse van West-Vlaanderen prologue

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Kristof Vandewalle (Omega Pharma-Quick Step) won his first race of the 2013 season with a victory in the opening 7km prologue time trial at the Driedaagse van West-Vlaanderen. The Belgian time trial champion finished eight seconds ahead of Tiago Machado (RadioShack Leopard) and nine seconds up on Omega Pharma-Quick Step teammate Gert Steegmans.

With his victory, Vandewalle earns the first leader's jersey of the three-day Belgian stage race.

"It was great to win today, with it only being my fifth race of the season." Vandewalle said. "To start winning like this is good. We started with a really strong team and we did a good warm-up. We started warming-up through motor pacing behind our bus driver Dirk Clarysse, which was 40km from the start. I think it was the right decision to do it like that.

"As for me, my condition was good for this race. But last week I became sick so it was one big question mark if I would be good today or not. So I had quite a good feeling when I started today, but did not come into this race expecting to have such a good result."

The Belgian ProTeam hopes to build on its momentum and looks to work for their sprinter Mark Cavendish on the upcoming stages.

"It's good for the morale," Vandewalle said. "Everyone performed really good and everyone was already motivated for this weekend. Now we have to perform in the next days. We will do our best to keep the leader's jersey in the team. Hopefully we can come into the next races with a win. I think it can be two times a bunch sprint if the wind is not that strong in either stage. With a guy like Cavendish on the team we always have a good chance."