Before the Omloop Het Nieuwsblad 2023 rolled out of a cold humid Ghent this morning, the opening bout of Opening Weekend had been billed as the most open edition in years.
In the absence of Wout van Aert, and his life-long rival Mathieu van der Poel, the bookies certainly had no idea. The odds they were offering were all over the place.
Who’s that up there as a favourite? What’s he doing among the no-hopers? Ad From a certain point of view the race did manage to live up to that billing.
Because, in retrospect, almost any rider could have won it. As long as they happened to be wearing the yellow of Jumbo-Visma.
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