Prize For Your Eyes: Gent-Wevelgem

Mar 28, 2015 – Turn up your volume, because the classics are here in full force and you don’t want to miss anything. You will want to make sure you’re listening too, because we have heard good and bad news since the classics have opened up. Fabian Cancellara is out, Tom Boonen is out, Wiggins is in, and are John Degenkolb and Geraint Thomas. This weekend, we have Gent-Wevelgem, and we are excited to say the least after watching E3 Harelbeke.

Our photographer Yuzuru Sunada has covered the last several years of Gent-Wevelgem, and we are grateful to share his fantastic images with you. Enjoy the sights of the last several finishes of the Belgian classic, and don’t be afraid to look below in this post as well, we have much more eye-candy to offer.

Before you go ahead and scroll, we want to discuss a particular super-team looking to take back some momentum. The team we are talking about is none other than the Belgian based squad of Etixx-Quick-Step. We might ask, where is the team based in Belgium? We’ll it’s in Wevelgem, and without a doubt, the team is hoping to spray some champagne this Sunday. They have sprinter Mark Cavendish heavily guarded by Niki Terpstra and Zdenek Stybar. That translates to a very likely chance of winning, but they may have some competition.

The other super-team in town for the race will be Team Sky. On Friday, team Sky’s premier British rider Geraint Thomas won the E3 Harelbeke, cracking Peter Sagan and forcing Zdenek Stybar to chase extremely hard in the last 4 kilometers. They have added in the 2014 ITT World Champion, some call him Bradley Wiggins, to their roster for the event.

Don’t count out any other team however, because we know Giant-Alpecin will be leading John Degenkolb, winner of Milan-San Remo to the line; BMC will be pulling and pushing for Flandrien Greg van Avermaet and Italian Daniel Oss; and, there are a flurry of riders to also expect in the mix: Andre Greipel, Andrea Guardini, Heinrich Haussler, Davide Cimolai, Juan Jose Lobato, Mathew Hayman, Jack Bauer, Alexander Kristoff, Sep Vanmarcke, Elia Viviani, Ian Stannard, Peter Sagan, Gregory Rast, Jelle Wallays, Nacer Bouhanni, Geralk Ciolek, Alessandro Pettachi, and more. This is the short list.

Beyond the above, you can have a delightful view of Thomas’ victory just below, and also, you can watch the inspired finishes of the classics so far.

2015 E3-Harelbeke

2015 Milan-San Remo

2015 Strada Bianche

2015 Omloop Het Nieuwsblad