Still feeling the effects of his crash in Sunday’s Gent-Wevelgem and wanting to prepare properly for next Sunday’s Tour of Flanders, Tom Boonen (Omega Pharma-Quick Step) will not take the start at the final day of Driedaagse Van De Panne-Koksijde tomorrow.

After helping teammate Mark Cavendish to a stage victory today, Boonen explained the rationale behind his premature exit. "I'm very happy about the victory of Mark, he deserves it and the team supported him very well today," Boonen said on the OMPG website. "Concerning me, it was a 'good day at the office'. After the race I did 30 minutes on the hometrainer just to relax the muscles after the race. The knee is quite good, even if it hurts a bit when I am [at] full gas. But I can live with it. Now it's important to recover well at home in the next 24 hours and on Friday I will join the rest of the team to get into the mood for the race."

You can follow the action from the final day at De Panne live here on Cyclignquotes.com from 10.15 on Thursday