Cavendish wins in Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne

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 Mark Cavendish claimed a straightforward victory in Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne, delivered to the line perfectly by his Sky teammates.

Resplendent in his world champion's jersey, the Manxman took victory by a decisive margin over FDJ-BigMat rider Yauheni Hutarovich. Vacansoleil-DCM's Kenny Van Hummel was two lengths back in third, while world under 23 champion Arnaud Démare (FDJ-BigMat) was a fine fourth.

Cavendish had suffered with illness earlier in the race, but his Sky team set about bringing the race back together for a bunch finish on the flat run-in to the finish in Kuurne. In the finishing straight, CJ Sutton piloted Cavendish to victory.

“After the cobbles I told CJ that I didn’t feel so good,” Cavendish said afterwards. “Once we took control it got better although I was still vomiting. It’s incredible. I don’t know if I can take any credit for this win. The whole day they looked after me. I was never in the win and always in the front of the peloton. It’s a great win.”

Coming into the final kilometre, the stage appeared set for a duel between Cavendish and his great rival André Greipel (Lotto Belisol) but the German found himself boxed in and faded in the final meters, finishing tenth.

“At 300m from the finish line I was confident that I could not lose the sprint. Then Van Hummel swerved from right to left and there was no more space for me. I should’ve gone earlier,” a clearly disappointed Greipel said.

A fast start

In a quick and nervous first hour at 50km/h no attacks proved successful. After a collective stop at a railway crossing a group powered away.

Seven riders made the day's early breakaway: Greg Van Avermaet (BMC), Niko Eeckhout (An Post-Sean Kelly), Jérôme Baugnies (Team Netapp), Koen Barbé (Landbouwkrediet-Euphony), Gilles Devillers (Landbouwkrediet-Euphony), Justin Van Hoecke (Wallonie Bruxelles-Credit Agricole) and Julien Fouchard (Cofidis, le credit en ligne).

At the fourth climb of the day the seven had a gap of four minutes on a peloton led by the Sky team. By the time they reached the Oude Kwaremont, the gap was down to three minutes. Van Avermaet set the pace up front, dropping all his companions except for 41 year-old Eeckhout. At the top of the long cobbled helling another half a minute was whittled off the gap thanks to the efforts from Maarten Wynants (Rabobank) at the front of the peloton.

The selective climb caused some damage and the peloton split in several groups. A first group of about twenty-five riders including fast men Tom Boonen (Omega Pharma-Quickstep), Tyler Farrar (Garmin-Barracuda) and John Degenkolb (Project 1t4i) quickly picked up half a minute on a sprinter-studded peloton where Lotto-Belisol did the work.

With seventy kilometers to go Eeckhout and Van Avermaet were re-joined by Barbé, Fouchard and Baugnies. They had 1:30 on the Boonen group, with the peloton trailing by fifty more seconds, but efforts from the Vancansoleil-DCM team, Lotto-Belisol and Europcar closed first the gap to the Boonen group, and then the fate of the seven up front was sealed.

Eeckhout’s effort

As his group was being brought back, Eeckhout attacked and was followed by Wouter Mol (Vacancoleil-DCM), and was later joined by Aliaksandr Kuchynski (Katusha), Sylvain Chavanel (Omega Pharma-Quickstep), Jimmy Engoulvent (Saur-Sojasun), Jan Ghyselinck (Cofidis) and Sébastien Delfosse (Landbouwkrediet-Euphony).

With Sky content to let a group dangle just within their reach, the new escape quickly picked up half a minute at 40km from the finish line. When approaching the finish line a first time, having two more local circuits of 16km ahead of them, the gap ran up to a minute.

The Sky train was in full control, however, and one lap later half a minute was gone from that gap. At 10km from the finish line there were only 10 seconds left and a bunch sprint seemed unavoidable.

Once more it was Eeckhout who was the last man standing, having attacked his companions as the peloton was nipping on their heels, and had a brief foray with a Engoulvent before the high pace of the Sky-led group sped past.

With four men ahead of Cavendish, Sky hurtled into the finishing chute at such a pace that no rider stood a chance at coming around the world champion. Only Hutarovich could get close to his wheel, while Van Hummel looked glued to the tarmac as he struggled over the final meters to claim third.

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