Top favorite Sam Bennett saw how his teammates rolling out the red carpet in the bunch sprint, this in a hectic final as so often happens and very successful for Sam lately

Photo courtesy of @PhotoNews with thanks

Just like last year, Deceuninck-Quick Step has won the Oxyclean Classic Brugge-De Panne. Sam Bennett succeeds his teammate Yves Lampaert. In a bunch sprint he was significantly faster than Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Fenix) and Pascal Ackermann (Bora-Hansgrohe). Ryan Mullen (Trek-Segafredo) finished 44 seconds down on Sam in 82nd place, after a hard day’s work as domestic of the team! One thing I noticed was the many road furniture obstacles at the coast road to the finish…very dangerous indeed when all teams are trying to position themselves in the finale!!

Sam told Sporza TV “I’ve been hunting a one-day race in the WorldTour for years”Sam Bennett: “Jasper (Philipsen) opened early, but I wanted to wait a bit because of the wind. I was focused on myself and on no one else. It was a nervous day today with many posts and obstacles. Here a lot of riders are under pressure and then you don’t need that. This victory is very important to me. I win my first one-day race in the WorldTour: I have been chasing this for years. “