The World Tour classic Gent Wevelgem has also a smaller brother, the UCI U23 Nations Cup's one day race Gent Wevelgem/Kattekoers for national U23 men teams. We had four riders with Estonian team and two riders with Latvian team racing it.
Guys were eager to fight from the beginning and Estonian Artjom Köster and Latvian Pauls Rubenis formed a three men strong break at the beginning of the race with a Spaniard. At some point they had more than a four minute lead, but it was clear that with the ascensions of Baneberg and twice Monteberg and Kemmelberg they will not stay in the lead.
Finally it was a select group who sprinted for the victory including also Madis Mihkels (14th) and our Latvian rider Alekss Krasts (26th).
Pauls Rubenis finished 48th and Artjom Köster finished 77th. Erki Laanemäe and Joonas Kurits were helping the Estonian team's leaders with positioning and didn't finally finish, plus Joonas had a mishap with his chain and he had to stop for several minutes losing the contact with the main field on a crucial moment, on the foot of the Baneberg.
As the top15 riders score Nation Cup's points and it was the first event of the series, Estonia is now 10th in the Nations Cup ranking.
