Gent – ​​Wevelgem 2011

Gent – ​​Wevelgem 2011
Host country	Belgium
Competition period	March 27, 2011
overall length	205 kilometers
Starting field	200 in 25 teams (159 of which arrived at the finish)
winner
Overall rating	1. Tom Boonen 4:35:00 h 2. Daniele Bennati same time 3. Tyler Farrar same time
← Gent – ​​Wevelgem 2010	Gent – ​​Wevelgem 2012 →

The 73rd semi-classic Gent – ​​Wevelgem took place on March 27, 2011. The one-day race was part of the UCI World Tour 2011 and the sixth race within it. The distance of the race was 205 kilometers.

The participants

Participating teams

ProTeams Quickstep Omega Pharma Lotto Saxo Bank SunGard ag2r La Mondiale Lampre ISD Liquigas-Cannondale Pro team Astana Leopard Trek Rabobank Vacansoleil DCM Katyusha Euskaltel-Euskadi Movistar team Sky ProCycling BMC Racing Team Garmin-Cervélo HTC highroad Team RadioShack Professional Continental Teams Landbouwkrediet Topsport Vlaanderen Verandas Willems Skil-Shimano Team Europcar FDJ Cofidis, le Crédit en Ligne

The 18 ProTeams were entitled to start . In addition, the organizer gave wild cards to seven Professional Continental Teams , including the Belgian teams Landbouwkrediet , Topsport Vlaanderen-Mercator and Veranda's Willems-Accent . Each team started with eight drivers.

The favorites for the victory were four sprinters from the HTC Highroad team , which had won three of the last four events: defending champion Bernhard Eisel from Austria , Matthew Goss , winner of Milan-Sanremo , as well as Mark Cavendish and Alex Rasmussen . While Goss gave up the race after 100 kilometers because of a cold, Cavendish fell 23 kilometers from the finish and was deprived of all opportunities. Garmin-Cervélo was also considered a strong team, with sprinter Tyler Farrar , world champion Thor Hushovd and last year's runner-up Sep Vanmarcke from the host country Belgium sending three potential winners to the start. Also Quickstep with the Belgians Tom Boonen , the German sprinter Gerald Ciolek and the French professional Sylvain Chavanel and Omega Pharma-Lotto with German sprinter Andre Greipel and the one-day specialist Philippe Gilbert seemed prepared for different racing situations. Also noteworthy before the starting shot were Alessandro Ballan , Marcus Burghardt and Greg Van Avermaet , classic specialists from the BMC Racing Team , Juan Antonio Flecha and Geraint Thomas from Sky ProCycling and also Leif Hoste , Filippo Pozzato , Luca Paolini and Sergei Iwanow (all Katjuscha ) and Nick Nuyens from Saxo Bank SunGard , who had won the Dwars door Vlaanderen race a few days earlier , which is very similar to Gent-Wevelgem in character and route.

The distance

The start was in Deinze , a place southwest of Ghent. The peloton first drove in a north-westerly direction to Ostend . Then it went south along the North Sea . After 128 kilometers, the first hill with cobblestone pavement, a so-called slipway, was on the program. 14 slipways had to be driven over within the next forty kilometers. The last 35 kilometers ran east to the destination Wevelgem without any topographical difficulties .

Race course

The breakaway group of the day consisted of the French champion Thomas Voeckler from Team Europcar , the Belgians Romain Zingle from Cofidis, le Crédit en Ligne and Steven Van Vooren ( Topsport Vlaanderen ) as well as the two Dutchmen Bram Schmitz from Veranda's Willems-Accent and Albert Timmer from Skil -Shimano . The maximum lead of the outliers was just under five minutes before Timmer and Schmitz fell back. Thanks to Voeckler's speed work, the group was only caught up on Monteberg 35 kilometers from Wevelgem. About thirty kilometers from the finish, Peter Sagan from Liquigas-Cannondale and his team-mate Maciej Bodnar attacked . The Slovakian and the Polish were followed by the Frenchman Sylvain Chavanel from Quickstep and the Briton Ian Stannard ( Sky ProCycling ). The quartet developed up to forty seconds ahead of the main field, in which Omega Pharma-Lotto in particular did the follow-up work. Four kilometers before arrival, Bodnar had to let himself fall back, exhausted because of his speed work, Stannard attacked. Sagan and Chavanel were reached by the field in the last 1000 meters, Stannard only had to give up 300 meters before the finish line. Gert Steegmans finally attracted his Quickstep comrade Tom Boonen to the sprint, which Boonen won over Daniele Bennati from Leopard Trek and Tyler Farrar ( Team Garmin-Cervélo ) and was victorious at Gent-Wevelgem for the second time since 2004. The best German was André Greipel in fourth place. This was followed by Lloyd Mondory ( ag2r La Mondiale ), the Australian Mitchell Docker and the best Austrian Bernhard Eisel from HTC-Highroad .

Final score

Result

	driver	nation	team	time
1.	Tom Boonen		Quickstep	4:35:00 h
2.	Daniele Bennati		Leopard Trek	same time
3.	Tyler Farrar		Team Garmin-Cervélo	same time
4th	André Greipel		Omega Pharma Lotto	same time
5.	Lloyd Mondory		ag2r La Mondiale	same time
6th	Mitchell Docker		Skil-Shimano	same time
7th	Bernhard Eisel		HTC highroad	same time
8th.	Kristof Goddaert		ag2r La Mondiale	same time
9.	Lars Boom		Rabobank	same time
10.	Bathing Cooke		Saxo Bank SunGard	same time

Web links

Commons : Gent-Wevelgem 2011  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• Official website
• Gent – ​​Wevelgem 2011 in the Radsportseiten.net database

Individual evidence

1. ↑ radsport-news.de preliminary report
2. ↑ Official website [1] route map of the race