Yesterday the 75th edition of the Belgian semi-classic Gent-Wevelgem was presented to the public, and the ambitions are big. The race organizers want to include their event in the elite among the one-day races in cycling.

For many years Gent-Wevelgem was held on the Wednesday between Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix, and for the biggest classics stars it was mostly seen as a race to keep the legs going before the Hell of the North. As such some of the smaller riders had the possibility to go for a big victory.

In 2011 the race was moved to the Sunday preceding Tour of Flanders in a restructuring of the calendar. With E3 Harelbeke on Friday it makes for a big weekend of cobblestones races. As both are WorldTour events important points are at stake, and with points being crucial for the distribution of ProTeam licenses Gent-Wevelgem has got a massive boost during the last two years.

The trend continues this year. At the presentation of the 75th edition of the race yesterday, race president Luc Gheysens could reveal a temporary start list with a long list of big names. Tom Boonen, Mark Cavendish, Philippe Gilbert, Thor Hushovd, Greg Van Avermaet, Edvald Boasson Hagen, Bernhard Eisel, André Greipel, Jurgen Roelandts, Maxim Iglinskiy, Peter Sagan, Tyler Farrar, Matthew Goss, Luca Paolini, Fabian Cancellara, John Degenkolb , Matti Breschel, Juan Antonio Flecha, Heinrich Haussler and the young French sprinters Bryan Coquard, Arnaud Demare and Nacer Bouhanni all plan to participate in the race. For pure sprinters like Greipel and Cavendish the race is even their main spring objective together with Milan-Sanremo.

The positive development has given added confidence to organizers. The 5 biggest one-day races, Milan-Sanremo, Tour of Flanders, Paris-Roubaix, Liege-Bastogne-Liege and Il Lombardia, are known as the 5 monuments. Gheysens thinks that it is time to add a new event to this list.

"You always speak of five cycling monuments, but tyou should not hesitate to add Gent-Wevelgem," President Luc Gheysens said. "And not only because we celebrate our 75th edition. First of all we have a unique route which has produced results not comparable with other races. If you add this year's start list, you will see that it will not be an exaggeration to put us next to Milan-Sanremo, the Tour of Flanders, Paris-Roubaix, Liege-Bastogne-Liege and the Tour of Lombardy. Nobody should forget the Sunday between the Primavera (Milan-Sanremo, ed.) and De Ronde (Tour of Flanders, ed.)."

This year's edition of Gent-Wevelgem takes place on March 24, and as usual it takes in the a number of climbs - most notably Monteberg and Kemmelberg - before a hectic run-in to the finish in Wevelgem. The race normally ends in a sprint from a reduced peloton.

The last two editions have been won by Tom Boonen (OmegaPharma-Quickstep).