Timothy Dupont Wins Nokere Koerse

Last updated : 16 March 2016 By CNS Sport

Timothy Dupont of Verandas Willems has won the Nokere Koerse race in Belgium.

There was a strong field including seven British riders for this 199.5km race from Deinze to Nokere which featured at the end, eight 15km laps and a finish on the Nokereberg.

One of those British riders - Pete Williams of One Pro Cycling, crashed early in the race along with a Cofidis rider but both were able to get back on their bikes and continue racing.

Everyone was still together after 25km, heading towards Wortegem-Petegem and backed by a tail wind.

Thirty kilometres later and a break had formed with Pete Williams in it along side Devriendt, Sénéchal, Boucher, Ista, Van Goethem and De Ketele.

They were soon 2.05 ahead and 2.40 ahead after eighty kilometres.and 2.22 with 75kms left.

With four laps left the gap to the seven up front came down to a minute and went to twenty eight seconds before being caught with forty kilometres remaining.

There was just over twenty kilometres to go when there was a crash in the peloton which was as one. Frederik Fison, Marcel Siberg and Gert Docxk were amongst those who were hurt in the crash.

With fifteen kilometres to go, Jasper Debuyst attacked with three others but they were caught with ten kilometres to go and Sean Bieke launched a new attack and was joined by Jacobs, Colli and Vanbilsen.

They stayed away for four kilometres after being joined by Wisniowski who briefly led before being caught and so the sprint was on and Timothy Dupont took the win in 4.34.39 ahead of Kristoffer Halvorsen of Team Joker and Dylan Groenewegen of LottoNL-Jumbo.

Britain's Scott Thwaites was 13th, with Team Sky's Andy Fenn in 27th place and Alex Peters in 94th.

One Pro's Sam Williams finished 110th whilst Pete Williams finished 147th out of 148 finishers with Chris Opie not completing the race.