After more than seventy kilometres of mud-slinging on the Belgian gravel roads, Van der Broek-Blaak chose the attack. A depleted group with Henderson and Romy Kasper was unable to close the gap to the leader in the last fifty kilometres.

“Today it was full throttle from the start because everyone wanted to be at the front for the gravel strips”, Henderson said. “We did a good job as a team to be the first to turn onto the first gravel strip. There were a lot of crashes today and it was super hectic. Karlijn Swinkels, Romy Kasper and I crashed at different times. Aafke Soet did a great job bringing me back to the peloton after a stupid crash on the mud. Romy did a great job to keep the peloton together for the final. I attacked early on the climb to the finish but that was all I could do. I think we can be proud of our team performance considering all the bad luck we’ve had.”