Marcus Burghardt triumphs in a tumultuous Gent – Wevelgem

Apart from Daniele Bennati (digestive problems) world champion Paolo Bettini (fever) and old warrior Erik Zabel (scrapes after his fall in the Tour of Flanders), all rapid pedals are present for this 69th edition of Gent – Wevelgem.

Beside all ProTour-teams (including Unibet.com), Chocolat Jacques-Topsport Flanders, Landbouwkrediet-Tönissteiner, Team Wiesenhof, DFL-Cyclingnews and Skil-Shimano also get a wildcard from the organisers.

Thanks to the nearly wind still and soft spring weather the cyclists start racing from the beginning in Deinze. Florent Brard, Christophe Mengin and Roger Hammond are breaking away from the pack after 37km.

After only 100km the first three sprinters have a head start of 11 minutes. Fifty kilometres further, the sprinting team has reduced this lead to less then 4 minutes.

In the very dangerous descent of Mount Kemmel a bunch of cyclists make a spectacular fall. Jimmy Casper, Andy Cappelle, Luke Roberts, Wilfried Cretskens, Tyler Farrar, Luke Roberts and Wim de Vocht are the main victims. French cyclist Caspers seems badly wounded in the face.

Immediately afterwards Leukemans, Van Impe, Bodrigi, Guesdon, Gatto, Freire, Pozzato and Knees take a distance.

The hunting pack is very motivated so that behind the 3 head sprinters we find one big group. The German David Kopp and the Kazak Dimitri Muravyev do not succeed in fleeing either.

During the second descent others fall, this time James Vanlandschoot, Mathew Hayman, Mathew Wilson, Aart Vierhouten and Fabio Sacchi are the dupes.

Behind the 3 first cyclists we now have a group of 17 pursuers. There we find: Boonen, Gilbert, Nuyens, McEwen, Cooke, Burghardt and Freire as leading men. Another bunch of pursuers succeed in catching up with them, after this no other changes.

At 25km from the finish the young German Burghardt and the Spaniards Freire and Ventoso catch up with the 3 leaders, all this is going too fast for Brard.

Despite the defence of Quick Step, Predictor and CSC the pursuers could not catch up with the leading group anymore.

At +/- 1km from the finish Burgardt starts a sprint and leaves his last position.

A fierce reaction from the triple world champion Freire arrives too late. For the 23 year old promising German this is his first victory as a professional cyclist, and what a beautiful victory!

Nick Nuyens from Limburg arrives at the 23rd place, never before we had to look so far in the rankings to find the first Belgian cyclist in the final results of Gent – Wevelgem.

Results: 193 participants from which 128 placed.

1) Marcus Burghardt (Dui), 207 km in 4h 52’, average of 42 km 500m/h.

2) Roger Hammond (GBr)

3) Gomez Oscar Freire (Spa)

4) Francisco José Alberdi Ventoso (Spa)

5) Christophe Mengin (Fra)

6) Robbie McEwen (Aus)

7) Max van Heeswijk (Ned)

8) Baden Cooke (Aus)

9) Jose Joaquin Rojas (Spa)

10) Alexandre Usov (WRu)