Jelle Wallays (Topspoort Vlaanderen - Baloise) won 200.2km Dwars door Vlaanderen on Wednesday, taking advantage of teammate Edward Theuns in the four-man escape group that stayed away until the finish line, and included Etixx - Quick-Step rider Michal Kwiatkowski. 

Theuns was 2nd, and Dylan Van Baarle (Cannondale-Garmin) was 3rd. Kwiatkowski crossed in 4th. 

Theuns, Kwiatkowski, and Van Baarle bridged to Wallays with 54.2km to go after he attacked eight former break mates, and another rider who bridged, on the Eikenberg. Etixx - Quick-Step worked hard on the front to reduce that escape group's advantage to less than 12 seconds before Wallays made his move. Only one rider from his group could stay with Wallays, but eventually he was solo before the Kwiatkowski group joined him ahead.

The four riders stayed away thanks to a considerable amount of work by Kwiatkowski, as well as good collaboration in the final kilometers. Guillaume Van Keirsbulck and Nikolas Maes were in an 11-rider chase group behind that reduced the advantage of the four leaders to 29" with 12.6km to go. Van Keirsbulck and Maes did their best to not contribute to the chase in hopes the UCI World Road Champion could stay away with his breakaway companions.

Wallays attacked at about the 1km to go mark, and went on to win the race solo.

"First of all I am happy to say I am doing OK after my crash at Milano-Sanremo," Kwiatkowski said. "As you can see I felt good at this race. When I went away I thought maybe a bigger group would eventually catch up to us, maybe on the Oude Kwaremont or something, but they never came. So it came down to a sprint with four guys.

"It was a difficult final. With Wallays attacking and Theuns being his teammate, he wasn't going to chase him down. The collaboration maybe wasn't there with the rest of us that was necessary to close the gap. I also used some energy in the previous kilometers to keep our advantage before the sprint. I tried to win it today, but in the end Wallays took advantage of his situation and he deserved the victory.

"But I have to say, my teammates did a great job today on the front. It wasn't so easy to control this race and they did a great job.

“It was a difficult final. I tried to close the gap but I didn’t have support from Van Baarle so it was tough to bring the winner back. We made a good race and I tried to win but I’m happy with my condition.

"As for me, I am happy about my condition and to be riding again on the Belgian hellingen like the Paterberg and the Kwaremont, as well as the cobbles. I loved hearing the support of the Flemish public on the roads. Everything is going well in anticipation of my next appointment, Vuelta Ciclista al Pais Vasco, and I am looking forward to the next races."

“Michal isn’t that used to racing here as he’s only really done the Tour of Flanders but as the world champion he took the responsibility,” manager Patrick Lefevere said. “Of after the race I can't change anything. The best sports directors are always the ones in front of the television but I think Michal did what he had to do. The chasing group was always less than 50 seconds away and with 10 riders so he didn’t have time to speculate.”