The Three Days of West Flanders opened Friday with its standard prologue held on a seven-kilometer flat and fast course in Middelkerke.  With the wind a relatively mild breeze (20km/h) and the temperature a balmy 10 degrees (Celsius), none of the region’s usual distractions obstructed the riders from setting blistering fast times.

Anton Vorobyev (Team Katusha) set the early benchmark as he roared across the line in a time of 7:57 (52.830 km/h), the first to break eight minutes.  Jesse Sergent was four seconds off his mark, crossing in 8:01 (52.391 km/h) and slotted behind the Russian for a provisional second place.  

Moments later Alexis Gougeard (AG2R La Mondiale) nearly unseated Sergent, finishing less than half a second off his pace.  It was close, but Sergent had the edge and held his spot.

With most teams choosing to send off their fastest legs near the end, it became a game of patience: could anyone else break eight minutes?  

In the end, no one would.

When the final rider Gert Jõeäär of team Cofidis - last year’s prologue and overall champion - crossed the line the clock flashed 8:11; the top results stood and Jesse Sergent had sealed second place.

“My feelings were pretty good, I felt like I did a pretty even ride the whole way,”explained Sergent. “I really tried to start within myself and then finish stronger, but in the end I think it was just even all the way through. I have not had that many race days yet, maybe five or six, so I feel fresh and ready to go, but it’s hard to know where I stand. Second is an improvement on last year, so I am satisfied with the result! Overall, it was good.”

Stijn Devolder was the final starter for Trek Factory Racing and there was quiet anticipation he could also better his result of last year where he finished in fourth place, but after a strong start the Belgian faded and ended with a time of 8:26, a full 22 seconds off his 2014 pace raced in similar conditions.

“It was not so windy like it has been in previous years, and the temperature was good. Jesse was our best guy for today, and he was seven seconds faster than last year so that was a great performance by him,” said director Luc Meersman when we reached him for comment soon after the race had ended. “Stijn was very disappointed with his time, and we are not sure what went wrong and we will have to go back and analyze what happened. But overall the team did well, and we are looking forward to tomorrow.”

When the final results were tallied Trek Factory Racing had a strong showing in the opening race against the clock: four of its six riders finished in the top 23 as Danny van Poppel placed 17th (8:15), with Fabio Silvestre and Boy van Poppel sharing the same time (8:16) for 20th and 23rd places respectively.

Tomorrow is expected to play out to a bunch finish same as last year, which saw Danny van Poppel claim his first professional victory - how sweet it would to repeat!