Brugge - De Panne Classic

Before presenting the route of this race, it’s almost compulsory to offer an explainer on the event itself. Under a name most English-speaking people might encounter problems to understand, a well-known race -only ridden as a men’s event until 2018- is hidden: the Three Days of The Panne. With the authorization given by the UCI to Flanders Classics to move Dwars door Vlaanderen to the Wednesday just prior to the Tour of Flanders, this race had to change its dates and be moved back by one week, sharing condition of ‘De Ronde’-appetizer with the E3 Harelbeke and Gante-Wevelgem classics.

De Panne’s organisers (the city’s Royal Veloclub in collaboration with Golazo, the people in charge of the BinckBank Tour and the Tour of Belgium) decided to transform its format: the three-day festival will include a classic for men (Wednesday 21st); a race for women -Thursday 22nd; no less than a UCI Women’s WorldTour-ranked competition- and a ‘Sprint Challenge’, a sort of road race with an important intermediate sprints classification, set to be ridden by both genders on Tuesday 20th. That last format was scrapped from the race’s programme, and even though it’s now become a two-day event, the race has decided to stay with its name of ‘Driedaagse’ (three days), just adding the name of the starting place for both races.

That’s an important nuance, since the most spectacular thing about the race, in terms of landscapes, will be the depart. The Grote Markt square in Bruges, start for so many editions of the Tour of Flanders and now replaced by Antwerpen, will hold the beginning of a long race (152km), yet a completely flat one, with just one cobbled section: the 2,400m Oosternieuwweg Noord, right from the start (11km). Wind, attacks, narrow roads, fast speeds and -probably- bad weather will be responsible to make this race harder, in a preview of the big Flemish races our girls will tackle during the next three weeks.