It’s nearly here, one of the most anticipated points on the racing calendar: Opening Weekend. Kicking off with the WorldTour Omloop Het Nieuwsblad on Saturday and then the lower-level Omloop van het Hageland and Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne on Sunday, this weekend marks the start of the major Classics season, and the first big cobbled tests of the spring.
As much as Omloop Het Nieuwsblad is very clearly the opener, and an early test in some ways, it is also a major Classic, and a race many, many riders want to win. There are still weeks to go until the Tour of Flanders, but Omloop isn’t solely a precursor; it’s a big event in itself.
A bunch sprint
This article isn’t meant to be a ranking of ways to win Omloop, but I am putting this first because it would be bottom of my list if I were doing that. Bunch sprints in cobbled Classics are boring, I’ll say it. These races are meant to be battles, be it attritional or tactical, where only the strongest survive, and a bunch sprint is not that.
That said, Omloop Het Nieuwsblad can be and has been won in a bunch sprint. The men’s race concluded this way in 2025, with Søren Wærenskjold taking the win, and 2021 ended that way too, when it was taken by Davide Ballerini. For this to happen, there have to be enough teams with an interest in a…
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