Right when the crash happened I thought "That's it, just not interested in Sunday anymore...". After sitting with this overnight I'm thinking I might have been too hasty. The playing field has been leveled a bit with Lidl-Trek taking a hit, Visma has had issues all spring, Alpecin I don't think has the best support for MVDP for this race, SQS has been nowhere all year, etc. I really think this race has a very strong chance of turning into uncontrollable chaos. Perfect year for a surprise winner IMHO; even if Mathieu tries to force some kind of early selection no one is going to want to help him to the finale. Of course he's still the favorite but I don't think it's a slam dunk at all. Add in rain and this one becomes extremely difficult to predict.
I'm hoping Matteo finds he can handle 270k; the guy is absolutely on flying form, he's showing he's got a nose for being in the right place at the right time in these races, and he won't be remotely as marked as Mathieu will be. Perfect darkhorse bet for me. While I'm gutted for WVA and Stuyven I'm looking forward to this one again.