James Lowsley-Williams produced a brave performance in the breakaway before Jerome Baugnies sprinted to his third successive Druivenkoers-Overijse victory.
The Wanty Groupe Gobert man led home a select group of fewer than 20 riders in the 196.4km UCI 1.1 contest in Belgium.
Team Lotto NL Jumbo’s Amund Grondahl Jansen was second, with Baugnies’ team-mate Xandro Meurisse completing the podium in the race’s 57th edition.
Sadly, the game was up for the BIKE Channel Canyon squad when the race splintered with a little more than 20km remaining.
Lowsley-Williams had earlier given the British UCI Continental outfit plenty of cheer with a typically gutsy display in the day’s breakaway.
He escaped with four companions in the opening kilometres and quickly opened up an advantage of more than eight minutes on the bunch.
When Team Joker Icopal finally picked up the chase, the lead began to drop and one by one the escapees began to feel the heat.
Taylor Gunman, of Madison Genesis, and Metec’s Stef Krul were the first to succumb to the pace of the leaders.
Lowsley-Williams pressed on with Jordi van Dingenen, of Pauwels Sauzen – Vastgoedservice, and T Palm’s William Elliot before hitting them both with 50km remaining.
The former beat a hasty retreat but Elliot had enough left to counter Lowsley-Williams’ move as a select group jumped clear of the peloton.
Soon all the escapees were swept up – first by the chasers and then by the peloton – as the pace continued to see riders dropped.
Among them were stellar names such as Lotto Soudal’s Sean De Bie, Lotto NL Jumbo’s Lars Boom, Bryan Coquard, of Direct Energie, and Maxime Bouet, from Fortuneo Oscaro.
In the end only 61 completed the race with Baugnies showing his strength yet again. Click here for the full result.
