WHAT WE'VE LEARNED THIS MONTH

BLAAK LIKES TO RACE OMLOOP

Chantal Blaak’s Omloop Het Nieuwsblad victory this year was a long time coming. The Dutch rider has ridden the event every year since 2008, and in those 11 previous participations, recorded two second places, a third, two fourths and a seventh. However, victory had eluded her - probably the closest she had come to winning was her 2016 second place, when she headed up the small group sprint behind her then team-mate Lizzie Armitstead (now Deignan), who won solo, half a minute ahead.

All those near misses might have become an albatross around Blaak’s neck, but you wouldn’t think so, from the evidence of her 2019 win. She won in the old style, by being one of the the strongest riders and heading off on her own. She headed up the eight riders who separated themselves from the rest of the bunch on the Muur van Geraardsbergen, surging on the climb and putting her rivals under a lot of pressure. Blaak couldn’t quite break free of the group on the climb, but then tactics came into play. She attacked again on the short descent to the foot of the final climb of the Bosberg. With Blaak’s team-mate Anna van der Breggen also in the group, the appetite for chasing Blaak was not particularly strong, despite Trek-Segafredo also having two riders there, and the group were absorbed by the bunch.

While the chasers dithered, Blaak made good her escape - by the finish line she was over a minute ahead. She made winning Omloop look so easy that the cycling world wondered, what took her so long?