Crashes, mechanicals, and a top-five: Rollercoaster Omloop for Campenaerts

Earlier this week, Victor Campenaerts issued a statement of intent and something of a rallying cry ahead of the Opening Weekend of the cobbled Classics, outlining his own ambitions as a newfound Classics rider and the way his Lotto Soudal teammates would "tear the races to pieces".

After Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, the first of this weekend’s double-header in Belgium, he has been proven true to his word.

Campenaerts waged an all-action race, even if much of it was off the back of the bunch plugging holes. He stayed afloat - and indeed’ floated’, as he put it, up the Muur van Geraardsbergen - before taking a remarkable fifth place at the finish in Ninove. 

"I wouldn’t have signed for a fifth place beforehand, but given the race conditions I'm satisfied with that," was his’ assessment. 

Campenaerts, riding only his second classics campaign after spending most of his career as a time triallist, was fully acquainted with the chaos of the cobbles on Saturday afternoon.

His first flat tyre came on the Paddestraat cobbles 85km from the finish, but it was the second that threw him off course and to the ground. He flatted and then had to brake on the Holleweg with just under 60km to go but couldn’t avoid the crash in front of him and ended up on the pile. 

He rode on and managed to chase back on after a while, but his rear mech had been damaged and he had to change his bike with 45km to go. Just a few kilometres later, he had to stop again, running into a dead end after trying to move up “too enthusiastically” ahead of the Haaghoek cobbles.

It was a frantic half hour but once he was back in the thick of it, he was given an initial armchair ride as Florian Vermeersch attacked from range with Stefan Küng (Groupama-FDJ). He couldn’t