Jelle Wallays (Topsport Vlaanderen-Baloise) was clearly the strongest rider of the day at today's Dwars Door Vlaanderen as the Belgian took out the race victory. His teammate Edward Theuns was 2nd with Dylan van Baarle (Cannondale-Garmin) completing the podium.

With a constant drizzle and cool temperatures, racing got underway with a flurry of attacks. Team MTN-Qhubeka p/b Samsung were prominent in all the early moves and it looked as if Jay Thomson had made the break of the day after just 30km of racing. The peloton had other plans though and brought everything back together again.

Despite numerous attacks were Nic Dougall was also a prominent protagonist, nothing would stick up until the 80km mark when Wallays went clear with 7 other riders. The peloton brought them back 20km later but Wallays put in a counter to get another small gap. Eventually Michal Kwiatkowski (Etixx-Quickstep) bridged to the lone leader, taking van Baarle and Theuns with him.

A huge crash in the peloton had caused a split in the main bunch with only a select few riders getting through the chaos. Those involved in the crash or caught behind it were effectively out of contention. Team MTN-Qhubeka p/b Samsung had Tyler Farrar and Youcef Reguigui present in this selection. From this select group, 11 riders then managed to go clear with 50km to go and began to chase the leading quartet in earnest. With so much fire power upfront though the 4 leaders and 1st chase group would not be seen again, furthermore the 4 leaders would hold a 20" gap over the 11 chasers right to the line to decide the victory.

“The race was affected by a big crash that saw both Matt Goss and Theo Bos crash into a muddy ditch next to a tar section of road. Theo is a bit bruised but okay. Matt crashed on his right shoulder and has been sent for x-rays as a precautionary measure. The crash site was pretty horrific and we hope all riders involved are okay. Thankfully we had Tyler and Youcef make it through the crash with the first group while our other riders were caught behind the crash but not involved in it,” team doctor Jarrad van Zuydam said.