A hundred riders took the start of the race under a sunny sky. A british and a norvegian national selection and team Lotto were the strongest in numbers, as for Fenixs there was just me and Corinne who arrived just in time because she was caught in a big traffic jam around Antwerpen. Right from the beginning there were attacks and in the third of fourteen laps one of the british riders got 20’’ advance.

I decided to counter her attack and another british girl followed. We managed to catch back the girl in the front and continued together for three more laps. Then a girl from Lotto and another one from the norwegian team attacked so we slowed a bit so they could close up, which turned out being a pretty bad idea since none of the two were very helpful. The teamwork of Lotto wasn’t very functional too, so we were caught back in the 3

th last lap. I tried to get away several times afterwards but none of these attacks was successful.

The sprint was rather tricky with a 90° turn on the cobbles a 100m before the line and I chose to take no risk and finished 33rd, all in all satisfied with my performance but not with the result.

Corinne finished 19th and the race was won by last years belgian champion Ilse Geldof .

Prosperpolder

The weather conditions were very bad and there were only 54 riders on start. I had a serious lack of motivation for that race.

During the first five laps I had some problems to find my rhythm and contented myself in following the bunch, but eventually the diesel warmed up and I worked a lot trying to get away, but it seemed I was on a black list and they’d marked "chase down" on my jersey. There was absolutely no way to break away for more than a few hundred meters! The final sprint was also a bit special with a sharp left turn, but I kept a good position until some rider from Team Leontien missed her turn just in front of me and I had to break heavily in order to avoid a crash. The race was won by Lizzy Armistead in front Lensy Debboudt, I finished 20th since I had lost all my speed.

My next race will be in Passendale next weekend.

See you

Suzie