Vermote adds to Quickstep haul
Arnaud Démare won the final stage while Julien Vermote claimed overall victory at the 3 Days of West Flanders.
Last Updated: 04/03/12 6:55pm
Julien Vermote claimed his first victory as a pro when the Omega Pharma - Quickstep rider won the 3 Days of West Flanders.
With overnight leader and team-mate Michal Kwiatkowski not finishing in the front group at the end of the 186.5 kilometres stage from Nieuwport to Ichtegem it meant that Vermote moved up from second to first in the overall standings.
He was six seconds ahead of RadioShack-Nissan's Jesse Sergent.
Team Sky failed to feature in the upper reaches of the final standings after Michael Rogers and Alex Dowsett, both in the top 10 at the start of the day, were forced out of the race.
Rogers didn't start the stage following his crash 24 hours earlier while Dowsett was ruled out after he hurt his elbow when he hit the deck on one of the day's cobbled sections.
Meanwhile the final stage was won by Arnaud Démare (FDJ-Big Mat) who claimed the bunch sprint from Alexander Porsev (Katusha), with Kenny Van Hummel (Vacansoleil-DCM) in third.
Challenging day
It proved another testing day for all the riders, with wind, rain and narrow Belgian roads to contend with.
A flurry of early escape bids eventually settled down into a seven-man break who were allowed to open up a lead of four-and-a-half minutes as the route took in the climbs of the Monteberg and the infamous cobbled Kemmelberg.
That advantage started to drop and heading towards the first of three laps of an 11km finishing circuit the peloton started to splinter, with 17 riders forging clear, including Team Sky duo Ben Swift and Luke Rowe along with many of the other sprinters.
But with Omega Pharma - Quickstep controlling those closing loops for Vermote, everything came back together and it was Démare, who had been edged out on Saturday, who powered to the front on the line while Vermote rolled over in the bunch to seal the overall glory.
