Team Sky gave it their best shot at the Memorial Rik Van Steenbergen but it was Michael Van Staeyen (Topsport Vlaanderen) who sprinted to victory ahead of Robbie McEwen (Katusha) and Jürgen Roelandts (Omega Pharma - Lotto).

Steve Cummings and Mathew Hayman had both been prominent on the six, 8.8km loops which rounded off the race in Aartselaar, but bad luck was to strike when Greg Henderson's front wheel was buckled in a collision with another rider just 4km from the finish line.

Although the New Zealander emerged from that clash unharmed, the team had spent valuable energy in leading him into position before the set-back, and Russell Downing could only manage 13th place in the sprint which followed after being involved in an accident of his own earlier on in the race.

Van Stayen suffered no such problems though, and became the fifth consecutive Belgian rider to win his home event by weaving his way cleverly to the left of the McEwen on the closing straight before producing his decisive late burst.

After the race, sports director Dan Hunt admitted it had been a tough day in the saddle but felt the past week in Belgium had provided great preparation for the Tour of Britain, which gets under way in Rochdale on 11 September.

He told us: "It a long time for the race to settle along those narrow roads today, and our cause wasn't helped by the fact that Russell went down relatively early on.

"His crash required an entire bike change and he also picked up a bang to the head and took some skin off his legs, but he's a tough guy and thankfully was OK to continue.

"We then lost Swifty and John-Lee [Augustyn] with about three laps to go of those final circuits. They're still not 100% after their illness at the Vuelta but they were feeling better today than they did on Sunday so we expect them to be firing on all cylinders again pretty soon.

"The rest of the guys were pretty well positioned at that point though, and the plan was to lead Greg out for the sprint, but with about 4km to go an AG2R rider turned left into him and mashed his front wheel up, and that pretty much scuppered our chances from thereon in.

"G [Thomas] worked really hard to get Russell into the best position he could, but the run-in was narrow and scrappy Russell couldn't do a great deal more.

"We came out here to get a few hard races under our belt ahead of the Tour of Britain, and we certainly got them. The lads have shown they're in great shape and now we'll have a few easy days before we roll out of Rochdale on Saturday."