Belgian time trial champion Kristof Vandewalle secured his third professional victory today as the Driedaagse van West-Vlaanderen today kicked off with a 7 km prologue in Middelkerke. His victory was the icing on the cake in an impressive performance of his OmegaPharma-QuickStep team which placed all of its 8 riders in the top 17 on the stage.

When Kristof Vandewalle (OmegaPharma-QuickStep) last year surprisingly won the Belgian time trial championships, he finally got his first victory for his team after having spent more than a year without personal glory. Today he proved his worth again as he destroyed the opposition in the 7 km opening prologue of the Driedaagse van West-Vlaanderen.

With the race consisting of a short prologue and two stages often finishing in mass sprints, the opening TT and bonus seconds often play a crucial role in determining final the final overall classification. As a consequence, potential winner candidates had to be ready from the gun if they had any ambitions of succeeding defending champion Julien Vermote (OmegaPharma-QuickStep).

Keeping this in mind, OmegaPharma-QuickStep and RadioShack-Leopard had sent rosters loaded with strong time triallists, and most people expected the prologue to turn into a great battle between two of the sport's strongest team. These predictions turned out to be right, but even if Radioshack produced a solid effort, they were no match for the dominant Belgian super team.

Riding just as rain started to fall, OmegaPharma-QuickStep's Belgian champion Vandewalle crushed the opposition with a convincing performance as he was 7 seconds faster than second-placed Tiago Machado (Radioshack-Leopard). With a third place, his teammate Gert Steegmans had an impressive comeback since fracturing his thumb just a couple of weeks ago, and with Niki Terpstra in 5th, Mark Cavendish in 8th, Frantisek Rabon in 10th, Dries Devenyns in 14th, Julien Vermote in 16th and Iljo Keisse in 17th, all of the team's riders were near the top of the leader board as the race came to a close.

Vandewalle will try to defend his leader's jersey tomorrow when the race continues with  a 175,4 km stage from Brugge to Harelbeke. As things stand, his biggest threat may come from his own ranks  as team sprinter Mark Cavendish was only 12 seconds slower than the Belgian. With the prospect of two bunch sprints and bonus seconds on the line, the former world champion has a strong chance of pushing his own teammate down the leader board and secure his second overall stage race victory of the year.

Result

1 Kristof Vandewalle - Omega Pharma-Quick Step 8.09

2 Tiago Machado - RadioShack Leopard 0.07

3 Gert Steegmans - Omega Pharma-Quick Step 0.09

4 Tobias Ludvigsson - Team Argos-Shimano

5 Niki Terpstra - Omega Pharma-Quick Step

6 Stijn Devolder - RadioShack Leopard 0.10

7 Johan Le Bon - FDJ 0.11

8 Mark Cavendish - Omega Pharma-Quick Step 0.12

9 Matthieu Ladagnous - FDJ 0.14

10 Frantisek Rabon - Omega Pharma-Quick Step 0.15

11 Patrick Gretsch - Team Argos-Shimano

12 Bob Jungels - RadioShack Leopard 0.18

13 Roger Kluge - Team NetApp-Endura

14 Dries Devenyns - Omega Pharma-Quick Step 0.19

15 Jesse Sergent - RadioShack Leopard 0.20

16 Julien Vermote - Omega Pharma-Quick Step

17 Iljo Keisse - Omega Pharma-Quick Step 0.21

18 Alexander Porsev - Katusha 0.22

19 Benjamin King - RadioShack Leopard

20 Artem Ovechkin - RusVelo