Today’s GP Vermarc, marked our comeback to the road racing scene since mid-March, when the COVID-19 outbreak happened. Our clothing partner, Vermarc, worked hard on putting together this Kermesse so they could provide several teams and riders with an opportunity to be back on the road with an organized competition. 

The race feature a total of 10 laps over a 16 km long circuit. It was a fast start and quickly a large breakaway went up the road with Milan Paulus representing the Academy flag. The 14-man group was allowed close to two minutes by the peloton and shortly after a 9-man chasing group moved away from the bunch and joined the leaders. The wide representation from the main teams in the front group difficulted the understanding in the bunch and quickly the gap was extended by several minutes. Sadly for our interests, Milan Paulus had a mechanical problem that left him in no-man’s land, and ended up waiting for the bunch to catch up and forgetting about any high placement expectations. 

The race victory was played among the leaders, while in the sprint of the bunch our David Dekker fell short to record a Top 20 finish in our first race back after the lockdown. Despite the result not being there, our talents had a very good chance to get that racing feeling back as we continue to build towards a compacted U23 season.