One rider went clattering into a policeman. Several went off-road for a while. And then there was the usual smattering of road furniture and, of course, De Panne's famous tram tracks. As one rider told Cyclingnews at the finish, "it was ridiculous".
The chaos of the run-in to De Panne on the last lap of the finishing circuit was one of the major talking points among riders after the race.
This was billed as the latest 'World Championship for sprinters', with nearly all the top fastmen in attendance, but the dash for the line was somewhat overshadowed by the lead-in to it.
"This is WorldTour level…" Jumbo-Visma’s Tosh Van der Sande told Cyclingnews, clearly expecting better from a race that’s part of the UCI’s top-tier series.
"If you see the last few kilometres, for me it's ridiculous. There are roadworks, there are traffic islands, there's sand next to the road. At one point I was in there, because next to the train roads was this sand track."
The chaos began on the final run through De Moeren. The wind wasn’t blowing strongly through the notorious swamp plain but the pace picked up regardless and Tuur Dens went head over heals into the ditch. On the roads back towards De Panne, ahead of a left-hand roundabout turn that would take them into Veurne, Movistar’s Max Kanter collided with a race marshal.
The marshal was standing on a traffic island in the middle of the road, signalling riders to use the left-hand side, but it wasn’t wide enough for the whole bunch and some riders went right.
After one Arkéa-Samsic rider did so, Kanter started to do the same, and the marshal moved in the same direction, leading to a head-on impact. Kanter checked to see if the felled marshal was OK, but he was Movistar's sprinter and soon had to get himself back in the race.
The run-in itself was well-known to many in the bunch, with traffic furniture and the notorious tram tracks that threaten to suck in thin road racing wheels. Riders were hopping all over the place, onto traffic islands, grassy central reservations, and even onto roadside bike paths, which is technically forbidden.
Finally, there was a late crash that saw one of the favourites, Pascal Ackermann (UAE Team Emirates) fall heavily, before the rest of them turned into the finishing straight and the sprint – itself a messy one – unfolded.
"The chaos that led to the sprint is indescribable. If you saw images from the peloton…" said the winner, Tim Merlier. "I knew the dangerous parts. A fresh peloton is always dangerous, of course.
"We're not allowed on the bike path, but sometimes you just can't do anything else when you have to swerve. That makes it extra dangerous, because you want to get off as soon as possible.
"I was happy that I reached the finish in one piece. The fact that I also win makes it doubly good."
According to Van der Sande, what made the finale so chaotic was in fact the lack of chaos before it. Brugge-De Panne is either a nailed-on bunch sprint, or it's ripped apart in the crosswinds in De Moeren, but it was a calm and warm Wednesday up by the North Sea.
"If it's all day crosswinds, it's different and more safe, but when it's like this, where you don't pedal until the last 20 kilometres, then it makes it dangerous. Everyone is fresh and everyone wants to do something for their teammates."
Van der Sande did not lay the blame squarely at the organisers, acknowledging that his fellow professionals had to shoulder some of the responsibility.
"Normally you cannot ride on bike paths and now everyone is riding on bike paths and doing crazy things. It can be better," he said.
"Last year it was exactly the same, but every time we come back and we do it again. For me it's a bit dangerous."
