Philippe Gilbert and Quick-Step Floors lived up to the hype Sunday as the team took a stranglehold on the race. The Belgian national champion rode away from a select group with more than 50km remaining on the Kwaremont to claim victory. Gilbert became just the second Belgian Wallon to win De Ronde, 30 years on from Claude Criquielion.
A chase led by Peter Sagan, Greg Van Avermaet and Oliver Naesen was bearing down on Gilbert when Sagan made contact with a barrier on the final ascent of the Kwaremont, caused the trio to fall. Only Van Avermaet was able to remount and resume the chase of Gilbert with victory all but assured. In the flat run-in to Oudenaarde, Gilbert had a few moments of panic, but with teammate Niki Terpstra playing a policing role in the three-man chase group alongside Van Avermaet and Dylan van Baarle, he had enough to lift his bike above his head in celebration.
Terpstra then held off Van Avermaet for a Quick-Step Floors one-two to ensure a final Flanders to remember for Tom Boonen who had made the race before a mechanical cruelled his personal ambitions.
