Talking of races that have changed names, Ghent-Wevelgem has a new one this year - In Flanders Fields Middlekerke-Wevelgem. And while it will always be Ghent-Wevelgem to many, the name is a good one, a tribute to all involved when this region saw some of the worst fighting of the First World War.
Our photo is Barry Hoban winning Ghent-Wevelgem in 1974, still the only British winner of the men’s race. And to celebrate we’ll let Barry tell you how he did it in this passage from his autobiography, Vas-y Barry.
“I ended up after the Kemmelberg clear with a group of 17. I looked around and for once I had some team-mates with me, Alain Santy and Raymond Poulidor, but we were up against the crème de la crème of Belgian cycling. Eddy Merckx, Roger De Vlaeminck, Walter Planckaert, Eric Leman, Walter Godefroot, Frans Verbeek, Herman Van Springel and Freddy Maertens were all in that break.
“We hurtled through Menen then Wervik, and from there you had 5 kilometres dead straight to Wevelgem. I knew I had overdrive, I knew I could win. On occasions I had it, Merckx probably had it most of the time, but now and again I had it, and if I had it, in a situation like that I knew I would win.
“I was spinning my highest gear, and it was easy. Then the attacks started. Gaps opened right left and centre, but I kept shouting at Poulidor, “Raymond, close the gap, close the gap.” He did it once, twice, maybe three times, but by then we had 300 metres left.
“Merckx, Leman and De Vlaeminck were all across the road in front of me, and I was praying for a gap to open. Then 200 metres from the line it did and wham, I shot through the middle of them. And boy, that was my best-ever win, it was magnificent. I’d beaten the greatest of the Belgians, and you look on the line, it wasn’t by inches, I was a full length clear of Eddy Merckx, and he didn’t like it. He did not like it one bit.”
You can read more like this from Barry in Vas-y Barry, my life in cycling. Read more here
