As the men’s Omloop Het Nieuwsblad was heading into the final, the women’s edition was still in the early phase of the race. But this turned out to be a decisive phase as the early breakaway kept adding to its advantage. In the peloton, none of the big teams took responsibility to control the gap and bring back the attackers, instead looking to their rivals to start the chase first in a game of ‘who blinks first’ until, eventually, it was too little, too late.
The experienced 38-year-old Ellen van Dijk (Lidl-Trek) realised during the race that the gap had become too big, but didn’t see her team as being the one responsible for chasing.
