The Three Days of West-Flanders came to an end today. Danny Van Poppel won the last stage. In the sprint he beat Kris Boeckmans and Michael Van Staeyen. Yves Lampaert won the first stage on Saturday and he then took over the leader’s jersey from prologue winner Anton Vorobyev. Lampaert is the overall winner. Lotto Soudal sports director Frederik Willems reviews the past three days.

“The team started with a strong prologue," he said. Sean De Bie set the fastest time of the team. Kris Boeckmans was the second best of the last twenty riders that started, but because there was more wind it was impossible to finish high in the ranking. The difference with the leader was considerably big, so it would be difficult to still get a good result in GC. That’s why we decided to focus on a stage win.

“Saturday it was Tosh [van der Sande] who set up the decisive breakaway. They could just stay ahead of the peloton, but because Sander Cordeel had attacked in the final kilometre the others had to start sprinting very early. Tosh might have wanted to win too much. He tried, but Yves Lampaert passed him. Today the team was really strong again. Unfortunately we lost Kenny Dehaes just before the Kemmelberg. We don’t know yet what the damage will be of his crash, but his fingers hurt and he has some abrasions.

“On the cobbles of the Steenstraat a big part of the peloton got held up by another crash. Gert Dockx, Tosh Van der Sande and Kris Boeckmans were riding in front. Not much later Tosh had a puncture and so he got back in the peloton. The front group was caught with four kilometres to go. Kris had lost some energy and was beaten by a fresh Danny Van Poppel.

“It’s a pity when you are so close to a victory two days in a row. But there were lots of positive signs. The team was strong and there’s a good team spirit. That’s also important with the Flemish classics ahead of us.”