Jelle Wallays’ late attack from a small break that was established late into the Omloop van het Houtland gave him the solo win ahead of Daniel Schorn (NetApp) and Coen Vermelfoort (CT De Rijke). This gave Topsport Vlaanderen another win in a home Classic after also winning De Kustpijl recently.

The first attack of the day was launched by David Boucher (FDJ.fr) and Jelle Wallays (Topport Vlaanderen-Baloise). However, they were soon recaptured and a new attack was made containing Julien Duval (Roubaix Lille Metropole), Wouter Mol (Veranclassic - Doltcini) and Anders Skaarseth (Team Joker). The three got a gap and were chased and eventually joined by Ronan Van Zandbeek (CT De Rijke) and Arnold Fiek (Team Stuttgart).

The break gained a gap of 2 minutes as the peloton splintered in fierce winds. The peloton was soon back together and the break’s gap grew to a maximum of 6’25. Then another windy section combined with wind just over 100km from the line splintered the peloton into a lead group of 19 who caught the break with ease. This is who was in the group after they had caught the break: Devenyns (Giant), Vangenechten, Vander Sande (Lotto), Van Keirsbulck, Vermote (Omega Pharma), Tankink (Belkin) Courteille (FDJ), Schorn (NetApp), Wallays (Topsport Vlaanderen) Napolitano (Wanty), Duval (Roubaix), Ike Groen, Vermeltfoort (CT De Rijke) Skaarseth (Team Joker), Eising (Metec) Walscheid (Stolting) Vermeulen (Team 3M) and Mol (Veranclassic).

That group of 19 was the first big move in the wind as the only previous move, containing Chenq Ji (Giant), Tosh Van der Sande (Lotto - Belisol), Guillaume Van Keirsbulck (Omega Pharma), Arnaud Courteille (FDJ.fr), Jelle Wallays (Topsport Vlaanderen) and Ike Groen (CT De Rijke) had failed to get much of a gap. 

The peloton sat 1’18 behind the group of 19, and it contained Van Asbroeck Kittel and Demare. Meanwhile, it had stopped raining on the finishing circuit.

The peloton worked well to close the group of 19’s gap down and this prompted an attack from Van Der Sande, Vermeltfoort and Tankink out of the small lead group. With three laps of the finishing circuit to go they were joined by three more member of the group of 19: Schorn, Wallays and Vermote. This left the group of 6 with 25km to go and a 54 second gap to the group of 13 and the peloton not far behind.

Inside last lap Giant controlled the peloton and brought back the 13 men but were making no inroads to the group of 6, who still had a gap of 1’06.

The realisation that the chance of victory was possible prompted Daniel Schorn to launch an attack but he was brought back with 3km to go and this served as a launch pad for Wallays make his winning attack.

He rode hard while the 5 men chasing him seemed to falter, meaning he had an 8 second advantage heading under the flamme rouge.

Wallays held on to take his second pro win by 2 seconds and Schorn beat Vermeltfoort in the sprint fro second with the rest of the break filling the top 6 spots. Vermeltfoort and the rest of the break were 3 seconds behind Wallays. Tom Van Asbroeck gave Topsport another man in the top 10 by winning the peloton sprint for 7th 37 seconds later.