Sylvain Chavanel, Nikolas Maes and Tom Boonen all made breakaways at Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne, but none of the groups were able to stay away on Sunday. Mark Cavendish (Sky Procycling) took the bunch sprint victory, with Yauheni Hutarovich (FDJ-BigmAT) AND Kenny Van Hummel (Vacansoleil-DCM Pro Cycling) rounding out the podium in the 198km race. "I'm happy about my weekend," Chavanel said. "If I consider that I was sick this week it's really a brilliant performance. I come out from the Belgian opening weekend with a good feeling. I will try to tune my condition this week before Paris-Nice, a race that I like a lot." Chavanel had perhaps the best chance in a seven rider breakaway. The seven men had as much as a minute with 25km remaining. However, their gap was drastically cut to 34 seconds with just 19km remaining. By the time the 10km mark approached, the Chavanel group had just 13 seconds on the peloton, and then five out of the seven riders were caught at the 7km mark. Those riders were eventually absorbed with 5km remaining, setting up the mass sprint finish. Gert Steegmans was the team's top finisher, taking 28th place.
"We tried to make moves today, but there were three teams that controlled the race — Sky, Lotto and Garmin — in order to arrive at the sprint." Trainer Tom Steels said. "The good weather conditions didn't make the difference as in the recent past. In any case, we had a good weekend as team. The guys did their best. We had positive signals from our riders and we really looking forward to the next races."
Boonen and Maes led the race with a 20-plus rider group, with 58km to go. They just caught the original race break. The Boonen and Maes group already had a 44 second gap on the peleton. That gap was cut quickly to just 24 seconds with 53 km remaining, and with a little more than 40km remaining, the Boonen and Maes group was ready to be absorbed. That was when Chavanel and his group made their move.
"Today was a race that never began," Boonen said. "Few teams took matters in their hands and we waited for the sprint.We tried to do something to move up in the race but it wasn't easy. Kuurne is a race where the weather plays always a role. Today we had no wind and no rain. The sprint was the consequence. I'm happy about my weekend. Yesterday I did a good race, today I tried. I'm growing up as I've planned."