Andreas Klier was in no hurry to leave on Wednesday afternoon. Perched in a dirty brown chair in a smoke-filled room of reporters in Wevelgem, Belgium — the finishing town of the 65th running of the midweek classic known as Ghent-Wevelgem — the blond-haired, blue-eyed German was soaking it all in.

Wearing a baseball hat and the pink-and-black Telekom kit, Klier smiled and laughed longer than most winners of races as prestigious as this one. An hour earlier, he had captured the biggest win of his career by surviving the punishing wind of northwest Belgium and beating the Navigators’ Henk Vogels and QuickStep-Davitamon’s Tom Boonen with a cagey sprint to win the tough 204km race.

Vogels, Klier and Boonen

Photo: Graham Watson

Klier’s win was a surprise to most. The bookies on Wevelgem’s main street, sandwiched between the bratwurst dealers with their boards displaying names and odds, didn’t even have Klier on their list. To them, the 27-year-old wasn’t even a long-shot. But Klier, who lives in Belgium and always dreamed of winning a race like Ghent-Wevelgem, knew something they didn’t.

“Five years ago, I moved to Belgium because I want to win a race like this,” he said. “I always train with Belgium guys, I like the mentality. I like this race. Three times I’ve done it, and three times I was in the first group.”

Another who holds a special place in his heart for Ghent-Wevelgem is Vogels. The Australian leader of the U.S.-based Navigators was edged out by Klier in the sprint, but his brilliant performance opened a lot of eyes and went a long way toward putting the American Division 2 team on the map in the hallowed ground of the spring classics.

“Ghent-Wevelgem has always been one of my favorite races,” Vogels said. “It’s definitely a very fast race where guys are riding in good condition. I would always get goosebumps when I was watching the race from America on television.”

Before he watched them, he raced them. Vogels is an experienced classics racer who lived through the Mercury team’s financial struggles and was itching to get back to a race like this. At the start in the town of Deinze, just outside of Ghent, Vogels called this the most important race of the year besides the USPRO Championship in Philadelphia. And when team director Ed Beamon was asked about team strategy, he said, “Henk Vogels, all the way.”

“I don’t normally have that narrow of a focus, but Henk has been showing really great form,” Beamon added.

The Navigators team has a few more races in Europe before heading back to the U.S. next week for the Tour of Georgia stage race, and Ghent was by far the biggest race they had been invited to. The riders knew this was the big time, and after slogging it out in hard European races for the past two months, they came to Ghent-Wevelgem prepared.

On the wind-blasted roads that traveled west from Ghent to the coast, then south before heading back east into a headwind, they made all the right moves. When the chain was skipping on Vogels’s bike when he put it in the 11-tooth cog early in the race, they were there to help him after a bike exchange. And when things turned up when the field swung south, away from the coast, just after De Panne, Navigators were right in the thick of it.

The wind broke things apart

Photo: Graham Watson

“I was screaming at my team to get me to the front, and when it happened, we had three in 30,” Vogels said. “Those are good odds for the Navigators team.”

It was an eventful day, and while Klier and Vogels came away smiling, some other big-name riders had a tough day. At the 54km mark, coming into the town of Oostende, there was a crash near the back of the pack that took six riders down. World Cup co-leader Paolo Bettini was one, and the Quick Step-Davitamon rider was taken to the hospital for X-rays on his shoulder. Also hospitalized after the crash was Belgian Ludo Dierckxsens (Landbouwkrediet-Colnago).

Next on the list of riders who hit the deck was last year’s Ghent-Wevelgem winner Mario Cipollini (Dominca Vacanze). Cipollini, struggling to stay in contact with the lead group the last time over the biggest hill in the race, the 20-percent grade Kemmelberg, crashed on the descent, going off the road on a hard right turn.

While trying to chase back to the leaders, a frustrated Cipollini threw his two water bottles at a motorcycle driver, who was an official from the Belgian Cycling League. One hit the driver square in the back. Cipollini found out when he crossed the finish line that he had been disqualified.

After Cipollini went down, it began to look promising for a lead group of 12 riders that had been formed when Quick Step riders Johan Museeuw, Servais Knaven and Tom Boonen pushed the pace over the cobblestone climb, which came 40km before the finish. That group split off the first group of 30 that broke away in an echelon back in De Panne. Vogels and U.S. Postal’s designated man, Max Van Heejswick, also made it over the Kemmelberg with the lead group of 12.

With Cippolini struggling, riders like Vogels had a shot. Still, the Lion King did have two teammates in the front group to sit on while a chase formed behind them, and at that point no one knew he had been disqualified. After getting to within 35 seconds of the lead group, however, Quick Step dropped the hammer, coming alive to fight off the chasers in a stiff, icy headwind approaching Wevelgem.

Knaven takes a gamble.

Photo: Graham Watson

When the gap to the chase group grew to nearly a minute, the games began at the front. It was clear by that point that they didn’t have Cipollini to worry about, so the attacks began.

Eleven kilometers from the finish, Knaven’s attack was the first to stick. The 2001 Paris-Roubaix winner quickly got a gap of 100 meters, and after another kilometer, Klier, Vogels, Boonen and Alberto Ongarato (Domina Vacanze) left the others behind as well.

Entering the twisting roads approaching Wevelgem, Knaven put up a good fight, but was finally caught about 4km from the finish. Knaven hung onto the group for a while before being dropped, and it came down to the final four entering the last kilometer.

Vogels knew Boonen had done the least amount of work to that point and was concerned about the Belgian. “I just wanted to follow Boonen,” he said. “I knew he was the freshest and I thought he was going to have a bit more go, but Klier surprised everyone coming up the righthand side. I could have shut the gate on him, but….”

A teammate finished the sentence saying, “but you’re a nice guy.” To which Vogels replied with a laugh: “Oh, I don’t know about that.”

Coming across the finish line, Vogels squeezed Boonen to the left to beat him, and Boonen headed out of control toward the photographers, skidded sideways, then pitched it over the bars in a frightening crash. The 22-year-old bounced back, though, and should be fine in time for Paris-Roubaix, where he finished third last year as a member of the U.S. Postal team.

The winner’s strategy was to key on Vogels. “I knew that Vogels is very fast,” Klier said, “but 10 years ago I was also a track sprinter. I knew if I had good legs, I could beat him. So I stayed cool and stayed on the wheel of Vogels. And at the end, I had the fastest legs.”

And the biggest smile when the reporters’ questions finally ended and he left to celebrate the biggest win of his career.

1. Andreas Klier (G), Telekom, 204km in 4:29:00 (45.502kph)
2. Henk Vogels (Aus), Navigators
3. Tom Boonen (B), Quick Step-Davitamon, both s.t.
4. Alberto Ongarato (I), Domina Vacanze, at 0:09
5. Servais Knaven (Nl), Quick Step-Davitamon, at 0:18
6. Raivis Belohvosciks (Lat), Marlux-Wincor, at 0:43
7. Johan Museeuw (B), Quick Step-Davitamon, at 1:07
8. Roger Hammond (GB), Palmans-Collstrop
9. Max Van Heeswijk (Nl), U.S. Postal
10. Mathew Hayman (Aus), Rabobank
11. Fabian Cancellara (Swi), Fassa Bortolo
12. Giovanni Lombardi (I), Domina Vacanze, all s.t.
13. Oleg Grishkine (Rus), Navigators, at 3:58
14. Danilo Hondo (G), Telekom, at 3:59
15. Marco Zanotti (I), Fassa Bortolo
16. Jaan Kirsipuu (Est), Ag2r
17. Nico Eeckhout (B), Lotto-Domo
18. Wilfried Cretskens (B), Quick Step-Davitamon
19. Andy Flickinger (F), Ag2r, all s.t.
20. Andrey Kashechkin (Kaz), Quick Step-Davitamon, at 4:00
21. Aart Vierhouten (Nl), Lotto-Domo, at 4:01
22. Leon Van Bon (Nl), Lotto-Domo, at 5:20
23. Juan Antonio Flecha (Sp), iBanesto.com, at 6:08
24. Staf Scheirlinckx (B), Flanders-IteamNova, at 6:11
25. Tom Steels (B), Landbouwkrediet, at 6:16
26. Robbie McEwen (Aus), Lotto-Domo
27. David Kopp (G), Telekom
28. Stefan Van Dijk (Nl), Lotto-Domo
29. Steven De Jongh (Nl), Rabobank
30. Rudi Kemna (Nl), GiroLoterij
31. Ludovic Capelle (B), Landbouwkrediet
32. Viatcheslav Ekimov (Rus), U.S. Postal
33. Ciaran Power (Ir), Navigators
34. Nico Mattan (B), Cofidis
35. Serguei Ivanov (Rus), Fassa Bortolo
36. Olaf Pollack (G), Gerolsteiner
37. Julian Dean (NZ), CSC
38. Oscar Freire Gomez (Sp), Rabobank
39. Bram Tankink (Nl), Quick Step-Davitamon
40. José Gutierrez (Sp), iBanesto.com
41. Bert Scheirlinckx (B), Flanders-IteamNova
42. Karsten Kroon (Nl), Rabobank
43. Chris Peers (B), Cofidis
44. José Vicente Garcia Acosta (Sp), iBanesto.com
46. Andrea Tafi (I), CSC
47. Marc Wauters (B), Rabobank
48. Lorenzo Bernucci (I), Landbouwkrediet, all s.t.
49. Jan Boven (Nl), Rabobank, at 6:30Disqualified - Mario Cipollini (I), Domina Vacanze164 Starters, 49 finishers