The clear favorite was defending champion and Belgian champion Tim Merlier. In addition, he was in top form; with a stage win in Paris-Nice as ultimate proof. On that, everyone at the start in Deinze, and there were many people, agreed.
However, there was plenty of other sprint talent at the start; Sam Welsford and Alberto Dainese for Team DSM, Pascal Ackermann from Team UAE, Gerben Thijssen from Intermarché,…
It was anything but a boring race. There was a flurry of attacks. Among others, former winner Ludovic Robeet, Jasper De Buyst and Sep Vanmarcke showed themselves very active. The young and strong Groupama-FDJ team was also active. After an intermezzo by Samuel Watson, Laurence Pithie slipped away with Vanmarcke and an unleashed Florian Vermeersch.
Those three went on for a very long time and very far. But eventually Bert Van Lerberghe pulled the peloton and especially his team leader Tim Merlier back to the front of the race. In the last kilometer, it still came down to a sprint, with an iron-strong Tim Merlier who managed to leave Edward Theuns and Milan Menten behind. The first all-Belgian podium in almost 30 years!
Alex Colman (Team Flanders-Baloise) won the CAPS mountain prize.
