The week after the Tour de Suisse is often used to fine tune the condition for the national championships and the Tour de France and only offers one major race in addition to the battle for the national champion’s jerseys. Halle-Ingooigem is a typical Belgian one-day races with hellingen, wind and cobbles and is used by many of the Belgian, Dutch and French stars as a last preparation for the important events in the weekend. Starting on Wednesday at 15.30 CEST you can follow the race on CyclingQuotes.com/live.

Like many Belgian semiclassics, Halle-Ingooigem is either a selective drama under brutal weather conditions or a relatively controlled affair that ends in a bunch sprint. The three latest editions have all been dominated by the fast finishers as Arnaud Demare, Kenny Dehaes and Nacer Bouhanni are the three most recent winners in Ingooigem.

Of those three riders only Dehaes and Bouhanni will be on the start line but the former is expected to ride in support of an in-form Kris Boeckmans who is likely to be the Lotto Soudal leader. The big favourites are Tom Boonen who will use the event to test the condition for the national championships, and Bouhanni who recently won two stages in the Dauphiné but Moreno Hofland who has just won the queen stage in the Ster ZLM Toer, will also be a strong contender. They will be challenges by Jonas Van Genechten, Danny van Poppel, Lorrenzo Manzin, Edward Theuns, Roy Jans, Danilo Napolitano and Aidis Kruopis who are all among the favourites if it comes down to a bunch sprint. If the race turns out to be more selective, classics specialists like Zdenek Stybar, Niki Terpstra, Stijn Devolder, Jurgen Roelandts, Gianni Meersman and Sep Vanmarcke will be ready to strike.

The course can be divided into two parts as the riders will first cover 104.3km from Halle to Ingooigem, tackling the famous climbs of La Houppe, Kanarieberg, Kruisberg, Hotondberg and Knoktenerg along the way, before they end the day by doing five laps of an 18.9km finishing circuit that includes the Tiegemberg. However, the final 11.2km are flat which explains why the race has often been decided in a bunch sprint.

Starting on Wednesday at 15.30 CEST, you can follow the race here.