Russell Downing put in a brave late display at the Grote Prijs Jef Scherens but it was Lars Boom who ultimately emerged victorious by outsprinting his five breakaway rivals at the end of 13 gruelling laps around Leuven.

The Yorkshireman battled valiantly to try and bridge the gap over to that elite group, but it ultimately proved a fruitless task as he was hauled back by the chase pack before his Rabobank rival pressed on to secure a narrow win ahead of Maxime Vantomme (Katusha), Fabian Wegmann (Milram).

Sports director Dan Hunt was still hugely impressed by the team's endeavours though and added further detail to how the action had panned out.

He said: "The first two hours of racing were really, really tough but Mat [Hayman] managed to sneak himself into a move of around 25 riders. They held a maximum advantage of one minute 45 seconds but BMC, HTC-Columbia and Rabobank worked hard behind to bring them back.

"Once that had happened another move went, which proved to be the decisive one, and Russ put in a huge effort to try and get over to them. Unfortunately though, the other rider that went with him wasn't quite as strong and they ended up getting caught just before the finish.

"I'm really happy with the effort today though. I told the guys at the start not to be afraid to try things and get in moves, and that's what Mat, Steve [Cummings] and Russ did. Ultimately though, we just didn't have enough cards to play.

Limited resources

"We only started with five guys here, and two of those were Ben Swift and John-Lee Augustyn, who had been forced to pull out of the Vuelta a España last week through illness.

"We lost Swifty after five laps, and John-Lee wasn't quite race fit, so that meant we only had three guys who were really competing against other teams of eight.

"The race was a real tear-up from beginning to end and Steve Cummings has just told me it's the hardest he's ridden all year, but I thought we performed well given the circumstances.

"The mood in the camp was very subdued after Txema González's tragic death, but I think we took the right decision to race on.

"We're all travelling up to Aartselaar now for the Memorial Rik Van Steenbergen on Wednesday and having Greg [Henderson] and Geraint [Thomas] there with us will also be a big plus. If everyone's on their game and feeling well then we'll try and do the business."