Annemiek van Vleuten wins Omloop Het Nieuwsblad after astonishing long-distance sprint

Annemiek van Vleuten has started her season off with a dominant win at the Setmana Valenciana but within a completely different playing field in Belgium, she has taken an even more impressive win at the start of the cobbled classics campaign.

The 128 kilometer route matched the men's in it's crucial phase and in the penultimate hilly sequence in the race the attack of Hannah Henderson, Ellen van Dijk, Liane Lippert and Marlen Reusser put the peloton under pressure after getting a gap at the Leberg, but the main favourites waited until the Muur de Geraardsbergen to make the differences.

Annemiek van Vleuten launched an attack still far from the top and took Demi Vollering with her, with Lotte Kopecky just barely missing on the slipstream of the duo. The duo of Dutch women reached the front group before the Bosberg where Van Vleuten once again put in a dig with Vollering matching.

The duo never actually collaborated for the final 12 kilometers as Van Vleuten took up the whole workload, leading to a small discussion with just under two kilometers to go. Vollering briefly gave van Vleuten the wheel inside the final 500 meters and the veteran tried a surprise sprint with 350 meters to go, and without hesitating went onto the finish with what was seemingly a suicidal move but somehow she managed to hold off Vollering who could not get past.

As the peloton reunited behind, a sprint gave way to third place which was taken by Team DSM's Lorena Wiebes.