Terpstra victorious at Dwars door Vlaanderen

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Niki Terpstra produced an astonishing solo performance at Dwars door Vlaanderen this afternoon, riding away from a breakaway to have victory all but sewn up with 20km to go in the famous old Flemish semi-classic.

Terpstra was chased home by his Omega Pharma-QuickStep teammate Sylvain Chavanel and Project 1t4i's Koen De Kort, but neither rider ever threatened the winner, who finished a minute ahead.

“Some will say that winning here is not a big fish but to me it’s a nice greasy fish,” Terpstra said. “Having Sylvain with me in the breakaway was a major benefit. Today I felt great, especially when realizing that the others were suffering big time. After the bad luck from last year I finally feel lucky again and I hope the best is yet to come.”

Dwars door Vlaanderen features as the first in a series of one-day Spring Classics. The winner from last year – Nick Nuyens – went on to win the Tour of Flanders later that month. “That’s a race on another level with stronger teams that include all team leaders, like we will have Tom Boonen,” Terpstra said.

After two hours of racing at nearly 50 km/h the first serious breakaway group was formed when reaching the first hellingen. Thirteen riders gathered a lead of a minute in no time. The Omega Pharma-QuickStep team launched a counter-attack through Chavanel and Terpstra.

They bridged up with the breakaway group at the cobbles of the Haaghoek, with the peloton following on their heels. A rapid acceleration from Chavanel when approaching the fourth hill of the day, the Berendries, resulted in a new formation of the breakaway group - with only seven riders surviving the punch from Chavanel. The group consisted of Chavanel, Terpstra, Michael Morkov (Saxo Bank), Lloyd Mondory (AG2R La Mondiale), Maarten Wynants (Rabobank), Vincent Jerome (Europcar), Jelle Wallays (Topsport Vlaanderen-Mercator) and Jan Ghyselinck (Cofidis, le credit en ligne).

Vacansoleil-DCM and then Garmin-Barracuda kept the gap around one and a half minutes to the peloton when tackling a series of climbs. When approaching the Oude Kwaremont the gap dropped down to 1:10 while the co-operation in front got disturbed. “It wasn’t pre-planned. I wanted to ride the Kwaremont in front, and then halfway up it Niki made the acceleration. At that point he was a little bit stronger than me and he took the initiative to attack,” Chavanel said.

Terpstra and Wallays powered away at the top of the iconic climb and the duo quickly gained a lead of 20 seconds at the foot of the Paterberg. Terpstra dropped Wallays in front, while further back Sep Vanmarcke (Garmin-Barracuda) blasted away in the peloton, dropping Filippo Pozzato. “I showed that I was good but on my own it wasn’t possible to get to the front. We didn’t get a lot of information on how far the breakaway was but with Chavanel and Terpstra in there I knew it was going to become difficult for us,” Vanmarcke said.

On the wide roads after the Paterberg Terpstra led the race solo while building a big gap over Wallays. The chasing group with Chavanel didn’t have the punch to get close to the Dutchman. “I just controlled behind in the finale. I was a bit worried that he might have gone too far from the line because there was the Paterberg to come afterwards too. I just controlled Maarten Wynants behind. I think he was the strongest of the group behind. He accelerated on the Paterberg so I went with him,” Chavanel said.

Further back Vanmarcke waited for four new chasers Jens Keukeleire, Koen de Kort, Alexandre Pichot and Filippo Pozzato to catch up. Terpstra headed into the last 20 kilometers with a lead of 45 seconds over Wallays, more than a minute over the Chavanel group and nearly three minutes over the peloton.

Wallays struggled to maintain his lead over the chasing pack and just over the penultimate climb, the Holstraat at 16km from the finish in Waregem, he was caught back by the six. At the same time the Vanmarcke group bridged up as well, creating a group of twelve chasers at 1:20 from leader Terpstra. They failed to provide a serious chase on Terpstra and from a long way out it was clear that he would be the winner of the 67th Dwars door Vlaanderen.

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