The wind was the main opponent for the riders that were taking part in the Three Days of De Panne. All along the 201,6 km from the start in De Panne to the finish in Zottegem, the wind blew intensely and, as a consequence, the average speed of the first hour of the race was 56 km/h.

Despite the very high speed, Portuguese champion Nelson Oliveira succeeded in escaping from the bunch with 3 riders (Debusschere, Reihs and Salomein) after 80km of the race. The peloton reacted in the central part of the race, so Oliveira was dropped from the head of the race where he supported his teammates while Debusschere was joined by 5 riders: this small group battled for the victory which was taken by Kristoff ahead of Debusschere.

For LAMPRE-MERIDA, Davide Cimolai tried to escape from the peloton in order to chase the lead group of 6 riders, but he could not find the necessary support by other riders to achieve his goal. So Cimolai, together with Pozzato and Ferrari, focused his actions on the support of Modolo for the sprint of the chase group. Modolo finished 9th. at 34 seconds.

"It was important to see the reaction and the desire to be active from our riders after the results in the previous two races were below expectations," sports director Mario Scirea said. "Today we were careful from the first kilometers and Nelson did well to find the strength to join the escape. Unfortunately we missed something to be protagonists until the end but I liked the determination of our riders. Modolo wanted to compete and has had a lot of grit; Pozzato worked to get back up to racing speed after the virus took hit him a few days ago."