Nicolas Vereecken took a superb victory today for the An Post-Chain Reaction-Sean Kelly Team in Belgium's oldest race, the highly prestigious G.P. Stadsprijs Geraardsbergen.
This was the 96th running of the famous race which tackles the lower half of the muur van Geraardsbergen on every one of the 17 laps.
The team lined up with a very strong 14 man team and where very active all day, after alot of attacking over the first three laps Mark McNally got himself into a promising escape group that looked like it might go clear but due to the extremely fast pace in the peloton this group was reeled back in a few laps later. This attacking nature continued for the whole 168km of the race with the team very active in these moves.
As it became clear the race was going to come down to a sprint Nicolas began to save his legs for the final sprint up the steep cobbled street in the center of Geraardsbergen - where Nicolas proved to be the strongest of the 265 starters in the race and out sprinted Bert De Baker of the Argos Shimano team.
Nicolas has had a terrific season so far and today was the icing on the cake that he has deserved all year.