At the end of 201km one-day classic John was pipped to the line by Andre Greipel (Lotto-Belisol) in the bunch sprint finale to this race around Brussels.

The race came back together with seven kilometres to go, just after a large crash had put several riders out of contention for the finish. One of the riders brought down was Degenkolb’s team mate Tom Dumoulin meaning that Degenkolb was a rider down for the finish.

At the finish the last 300m were slightly down hill and Greipel just had the edge on such a fast finish over Degenkolb.

"Today was very stressful," said a disappointed Degenkolb. "It took quite a while for the break to get away at the start, and then there was a lot of corners and tight roads but that is normal for Belgium and I actually like this type of racing. In the end it was a really hard finish. The team did a really good job especially Roy Curvers who was really strong in the end and it would have been nice to give something back to them after their hard work.”