Why sprint classic Tour of Bruges will erase the pain points of De Panne

Stop calling it the Brugge-De Panne Classic, enter: the Tour of Brugge. Organizer Golazo has given the sprinters’ race a completely new look and even aims to make it the safest race of the spring season.

Of course, the organizers don’t make this claim lightly. And it’s no surprise that they are moving away from the coastal town. During the 2025 edition, so many crashes occurred in the finale that only a handful of riders contested the victory. Riders and team directors were particularly harsh afterward: due to the many traffic islands and road narrowings, the center of De Panne was too dangerous.

The urgent message was: leave De Panne. For that, the organizers had to break with a strong tradition. The predecessor race, the Three Days of De Panne-Koksijde, had been part of the cycling calendar since 1977.

"But after the previous edition, our contract with the municipality of De Panne expired. That was actually the perfect opportunity to seriously reconsider whether it was still safe in De Panne," race director Jan Nys explained to WielerFlits. "We had to conclude that it has become absolutely not evident to organize a top-level race along the Belgian coast anymore."

"In recent years, we always chose the best possible option. Each time we did everything to make it run safely. But that was no longer feasible with the current peloton. There are so many tram tracks, train tracks, traffic islands, bus stops, and road narrowings. It simply was no longer suitable to send a group of riders through that with today’s racing style."

Urban sprint
Nys and his team had to go back to the drawing board and quickly arrived at Brugge. The idyllic West Flemish capital had already served as a fixed finish location since 2018. "So it was a logical step to turn to them. Budget-wise, it fit their profile. And we can still organize the WorldTour race for the best sprinters in the world. In a city; a kind of ‘urban sprint.’ That’s what this race stands for."

The organizers opted for a clear concept: a forty-kilometer approach followed by three laps of 59.5 kilometers around Brugge. Together, this makes 202.5 kilometers without any real obstacles. "Very deliberate," says Nys. "There are already enough brutally tough courses. Heading again to the Flemish Ardennes or the Hills region doesn’t make any sense to me. Nor for the riders. I think it’s clear to everyone this will be a true sprint race. That’s maybe still too rare at this level."

Safety remains crucial. What measures can a course designer take for the safest sprint of the year? "In the approach to the sprint, we only use wide roads. I think in the last five to ten kilometers we might encounter a traffic island once or twice. Also, all roads leading up to the sprint are dual carriageways. On the ring road there’s a very gentle turn in the last 500 meters before a straight finish. I think it’s a very beautiful finish."

Inside a city center, however, that doesn’t seem obvious to us. "Finishing in a busy city comes with challenges, yes," Nys explains. "But we are lucky the police cooperated very well and thought along about solutions. In a city center, you always have some obstacles; you can’t avoid them. But with our safety plan, every obstacle is optimally marked and secured."

Local lap
The choice for local loops, where riders cross the finish line multiple times during the race, should also contribute to a safe sprint. "In the Baloise Belgium Tour we often work with local laps, and we see it improves rider safety. No one has an excuse for not knowing the finish. Beyond that, it offers advantages for us in city marketing, visibility, finding traffic controllers, and logistical costs."

The organizers’ innovations seem to have intrigued the riders. With Jasper Philipsen, Sebastian Molano, Dylan Groenewegen, and Max Kanter, several fast WorldTour-level men start. Tim Merlier is a last-minute withdrawal.