Tim Merlier (Soudal-Quickstep) made it three in a row at Nokere Koerse, blasting out of a reduced peloton on the Nokereberg to victory.
Fabio Jakobsen (DSM-Firmenich-PostNL) appeared to be stuck in too big a gear and muscled his way to second several bike lengths in arrears. Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck) was third.
Merlier’s rivals had no response when he opened up his sprint at the base of the final climb after a crash marred the run-in to the Nokereberg.