Harelbeke (Belgium) (AFP) - Home hope Wout Van Aert beat great rivals Mathieu van der Poel and Tadej Pogacar to win the E3 Belgian cobbled classic on Friday for his first victory of the season.
The 204km race takes on the same climbs and cobbles as the more revered Tour of Flanders and the lead trio broke away from a strong field to contest the victory between them.
In often treacherous conditions, with rain beating on cobbles, the trio who escaped to contest the final are all blessed with superior technical ability and instinctive bike control.
Jumbo-Visma man Van Aert just edged Van der Poel after two-time Tour de France winner Pogacar led the trio over most of the final kilometres without managing to open the gap he needed on the better sprinters.
"I'm happy to be stood in the middle," said Van Aert on the podium after he was given a pint of local beer while the other two were handed half pints.
"It's been a while since I won a race on the road," said the Belgian, who missed training in the early season through sickness and injury.
His great Dutch rival Van der Poel, winner at Milan San Remo last week, took this narrow defeat on the chin.
"It was a really nice race today, at the end we also had some good weather," he joked.
"In the end, Wout Van Aert was too strong in the sprint," he said.
"But I can live with second place and hopefully next week I can turn things around," he said of the April 2 Tour of Flanders.
"For sure I wanted to win today this race as well.I was close.My first time, I was third, now second, so maybe I have to come back next year."
On his E3 debut Pogacar was also stoic about his third place after a series of late bids to drop Van der Poel and Van Aert.
"I tried two times, but they expected it and they were on my wheel.I hope things will different next week," he said of Flanders.
"I'll go home and do some good training, it's just a week to Flanders."
"The shape is there and there's not much to do now."
The race was tense with rain-slick cobbles causing a number of falls and near misses.
Ineos rider Filippo Ganna, fresh from his second place at Milan San Remo, struggled with the series of climbs, but sneaked into the top ten helped by some powerful riding from teammate Ben Turner.
"There were a lot of great champions here today," said Italian Ganna, a double time trial world champion.
FDJ pair Valentin Madouas and Stefan Kung made a bold bid to catch the winning trio on their key break and while they never managed to close the gap, they hung on for eighth and sixth.
Another Frenchman looking for a win was Soudal Quick-Step leader Julian Alaphilippe, who was at ease in the early running but pulled out after the halfway mark.
