E3 Harelbeke
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| Date | Late March |
|---|---|
| Region | Flanders, Belgium |
| Local name(s) | E3 Harelbeke (Dutch) |
| Nickname(s) | The little Tour of Flanders |
| Discipline | Road |
| Competition | UCI World Tour |
| Type | One-day race |
| Organiser | Hand in Hand VZW |
| Race director | Philippe Vermeeren |
| First edition | 1958 |
| Editions | 60 (as of 2017) |
| First winner |
 Armand Desmet (BEL)
|
| Most wins | Tom Boonen (BEL) (5 wins) |
| Most recent |
Greg Van Avermaet (BEL)
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E3 Harelbeke, previously known as Harelbeke–Antwerp–Harelbeke and E3-Prijs Vlaanderen, is an annual road cycling race in Flanders, Belgium. The race starts and finishes in Harelbeke, covering 203 kilometres, mainly in the Flemish Ardennes.
First raced in 1958, it is one of the more recently founded one-day classics, but has developed into a prestigious and desirable event. It is on the UCI World Tour calendar, as part of a series of cobbled classics in Belgium and Northern France in March and April.
Belgian Tom Boonen holds the record of victories with five wins, trailed by cycling icon Rik Van Looy who won four times.
E3 Harelbeke is held on the last Friday of March and marks the start of the Flemish Cycling Week, starting a fortnight of WorldTour racing on the cobbles and bergs of Flanders. It is the second in the series of cobbled races in Belgium and northern France that take place over a two-week period from the Wednesday after Milan–San Remo until Paris–Roubaix. E3 Harelbeke is the race that resembles the Tour of Flanders the most.
In 2010, UCI made some calendar changes, most notably positioning the Pro Tour race Gent–Wevelgem on the day after E3 Harelbeke, causing a dispute between the two races. In 2012, when the E3 race was upgraded to World Tour status as well, organizers changed the date of their event to Friday to meet the demands of UCI, who requested a day of rest between two arduous World Tour events.
Because of its place on the calendar, the race has built a reputation as the final rehearsal for the more prestigious Tour of Flanders, the Flemish monument race coming nine days after the E3 Harelbeke. With a distance of 200–215 km, the E3 route is shorter than the Tour of Flanders, but addresses many of the same roads and hills of the Flemish Ardennes. With cobbles, steep climbs, winding and narrow roads, and often affected by wind, it offers all race circumstances that characterize Flemish classic races. Favourites for the Tour of Flanders often do well in Harelbeke, eager to win the race and using it as the perfect testing ground. Because of the similarities, Flemish media have dubbed the race The little Tour of Flanders.
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Wikipedia