De Brabantse Pijl - La Flèche Brabançonne 2024

April 10, 2024 The final cobbled classic of the year starts in Leuven as the racing shifts east towards the Ardennes. Sunny and warm conditions spurred the riders on. It took an hour and a half for 8 riders to finally break free but as recent tactics dictate, they were not given much time by the peloton. It was a familiar sight to see the peloton fighting for position as they turned onto the Moskesstraat for the first time. The break's leads was down to forty seconds at the base of the Moskesstraat and were caught 2KM over the top. The race was stretching with riders going off the front of the peloton then being reeled back in. Alec Segaert of Lotto-Dstny, Andreas Leknessund of Uno-X Mobility, and Antoine Huby of Soudal Quickstep got away from the peloton and had 12 seconds with 60KM and three laps remaining on the local circuit. António Morgado of UAE led the peloton up the Moskesstraat for the second time, leading out his teammate Tim Wellens for an attack. 16 riders made the split, catching the front three. Huby and Leknessund went away again, this time with Axel Laurance of Alpecin-Deceuninck. Benoît Cosnefroy of Decathlon AG2R and Søren Kragh Andersen of Alpecin-Deceuninck bridged to make 5 at the front. 5 more joined a few Kilometers later with Stephen Williams of Israel-Premier Tech bridging up on the S-Bocht to make 11 at 2 laps to go. EF-Education EasyPost set a furious chase as they were the biggest team to miss the move and they were able to bring everythng back together with 36KM remaining. Dylan Teuns of Israel-Premier Tech, Tim Wellens and Marijn van den Berg of EF-Education EasyPost took off on the penultimate time up the Moskesstraat . The trio led through the last lap and it was only when Decathlon AG2R came to the front going into the Moskesstraat for the last time that was their lead in question. Quinten Hermans of Alpecin-Deceuninck was able to bridge up with a group of 8 chasing closely behind over the top. Benoît Cosnefroy bridged up to make 5 in the front on the Holstheide. Jefferson Cepeda of Caja Rural bridged solo, followed by Joseph Blackmore of Israel-Premier Tech making it 7 now in the lead with 6KM to go. With just over 2KM to go, van den Berg took a pull and no one followed. He found himself with a gap and kept the pressure on. Blackmore sacrificed himself to bring back van den Berg within the last 500M. Blackmore continued the leadout, Quinten Hermans was first to sprint but his legs gave out and he had to sit down. Tuens came around and looked to have it but Cosnefroy came with speed to take the win. Tuens finished second with Tim Wellens taking third.