Dylan Gronewegen sprinted to victory at the Ronde Van Brugge on Wednesday, marking Unibet Rose Rockets first ever WorldTour victory.
The Dutchman rounded Alpecin–Premier Tech‘s Jasper Philipsen in the finale, with Max Kanter (XDS Astana) in third place.
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There were multiple crashes throughout the race, including one caused by a motorbike that had pulled over to try and deal with a protestor on the cobbles section, which led to a collision that took down Juan Sebastián Molano (UAE Team Emirates-XRG), last year’s winner – an incident that left him well out of the action and remonstrating with a commissaire.
Wild winds and controversial crashes
This year marks the 50th birthday of the race formerly known as the Classic Brugge-De Panne, and despite wicked winds making the day tortuous for riders and severely restricting breakaways, the sprinters classic delivered drama in spades, with numerous crashes and a super tight sprint finish.
The 203km course from Brugge to the Belgian coastal resort town of De Panne features just 376 metres of climbing, but the gusts sweeping across the flat fields of Flanders harangued riders throughout, and whenever a lead group did get away it was quickly reeled back in by the peloton. Lidl–Trek’s Max Walscheid mounted an attack with 2.5k to go, but he was quickly caught and, as expected from the beginning, the outcome of race came down to the final few seconds of frenetic action.
Philipsen had led the dash for the line, but he didn’t have quite enough left in his legs, having worked hard to ride through the peloton in the final few kilometres of a race that saw XDS Astana‘s Davide Ballerini launch several attempts to get ahead of the leading group, and Groenewegen ultimately edged it, crossing the line in 4:15:57 to nail his third win in a row, and fourth victory of the season.
Twelve months ago, Juan Sebastián Molano was the beneficiary of an even more crash-tastic Classic Brugge-De Panne, but this year the Colombian was left sprawled on the cobbles after colliding with a safety motorbike that had been attempting to clear a protester off the course as the peloton sped towards him. The UAE Team Emirates-XRG was seen talking furiously to a commissaire after the unfortunate incident, which ended his chances in the race.
