After the recent bombings in Brussels airport, there was a meeting on Tuesday to discuss whether or not the Dwars door Vlaanderen should go ahead. The resounding answer was that the race should go on, in order to honour the 30 people, maybe even more, who lost their lives in the terrorist attack.

Most DS who attended the meeting all told Cyclingnews that they believed the bike race was not as important as the incident that had happened, and that all of the peloton send its best wishes to those involved in the attack and their families.

“What happened to the people in Brussels is a million times worse than cancelling a race,” the Trek-Segafredo directeur sportif told Cyclingnews.

“I think it is not my decision, this is for the government. If they say that we are safe then the race can go on and if there is too much risk then I agree with this decision,” Etixx-QuickStep directeur sportif Wilfried Peeters said. “I think what happened today is more important than the riders.”

“It’s right that it’s going ahead,” Southeast-Venezuela DS Serge Parsani told Cyclingnews as he left the meeting. “An incident has taken place that we hope never repeats itself. But you need to stand up to these things, because stopping everything would only give more credibility to the people who carried out these massacres.”

Part of the problem is that there is fear that should Dwars have been cancelled, Friday and Sunday’s bigger races (E3 and Gent-Wevelgem) would also be cancelled. Even worse would be the cancellation of Belgium’s biggest race, the Tour of Flanders, a week on Sunday.

“If there’s not enough police to protect the race from traffic, then we can’t race and I understand fully, that’s a normal decision,” Dirk Demol said. “But I’m afraid that if they cancel the race tomorrow, then there’s no race on Saturday and Sunday either.”

“I think it’s early days to start thinking about how many races will be cancelled. I think we’ve got to take it day by day,” Peiper told Cyclingnews. “We’re at level four here in Belgium, which is the highest level of alarm. We’ve just got to wait and see what the authorities say and take it as it comes. I think that everyone has had enough racing that it won’t be a major problem if a race is cancelled.”