Danny van Poppel led home the peloton over the finish line in Harelbeke, but it was not the repeat ending of 2014 when he claimed his first professional win. Instead, van Poppel sprinted to 6th place, four seconds behind a five-man breakaway that contested the victory of the 174-kilometer second day of Three Days of West Flanders.

“We had two goals today – to keep the second place of Jesse [Sergent] and win the stage,” explained director Dirk Demol. “Of course with 6 riders it’s hard to control the race, so we decided in our pre-racing meeting that we would take a gamble and not pull.  We took the risk, but in the end it’s still a pity when you see the breakaway just hold off for the win and Danny wins the sprint from the peloton. But we had to stick to this plan with only six riders.”

Yves Lampaert (Etixx-Quick Step) won the sprint from the five-man breakaway group and grabbed the leader’s jersey from team Katusha’s Anton Vorobyev, knocking him down a rung to second place. Lampaert takes a small eight-second lead into tomorrow’s final stage. Jesse Sergent, pushed to third, is 12 seconds back.

With the day’s early four-man escape group neutralized, five men slipped off the front after contesting the intermediate sprint at the start of the four local circuits.  . 

The five held a small advantage that hovered between 20 and 40 seconds for the next 40 kilometers and with Trek Factory Racing playing possum the chase was left squarely on the shoulders of Team Katusha.

With one lap to go it was still anyone’s game as the lead was no more than 20 seconds, however, the tricky 10-kilometer circuit played into the hands of the breakaway and thwarted the peloton’s chase. In the end, the pursuit came up a handful of seconds short and Danny van Poppel was left with a sprint for 6th.

Demol: “In the end we hoped Katusha or Cofidis or MTN-Qhebeka would help more to close the gap. Also, just before the [Oude] Kwaremont Boy [van Poppel], one of our strongest guys, had a puncture; it was at a terrible moment and that also hurt us.

“I have to say also that on a course like this with the four local 10-kilometrer circuits at the end that had 15 turns it made it hard to chase, and there’s not much to do.  With 10k to go the gap stayed at 20 seconds, and with two strong guys like Lampaert there, it was always going to be difficult to bring them back.

“On a good note it’s good to see that Danny’s legs are coming back, and for him winning the bunch sprint is good for his confidence. He also did well in the TT yesterday…we are ready to give it another try tomorrow.”