Team Sky was once again one of the strongest teams in yesterday's E3 Prijs Vlaanderen. A 4th place for Geraint Thomas was the end result, but the team was happy to gain important information of race winner Fabian Cancellara (Radioshack) ahead of the bigger races to come.

Team Sky was dominant in the stage races last year, but failed to be the same strong force in the classics. This season, they have made a concerted effort to make up for that gap in their performances by using the same preparation for the one-day races as they successfully used for last year's multi-day efforts.

As a consequence, the complete classics roster was sent to a training camp on Tenerife while their main rivals raced in the Paris-Nice and Tirreno-Adriatico. The benefits of this new approach were to be tested in the Milan-Sanremo where a 6th for Ian Stannard and 9th for Bernhard Eisel made for a solid result.

Yesterday's E3 Prijs Vlaanderen served as their second test, and once again the team was in the mix. Edvald Boasson Hagen and Mathew Hayman both made the selection after the Taaienberg, and Geraint Thomas managed to latch onto the group after Cannondale's hard chase effort.

As Cancellara attacked on the Kwaremont, Boasson Hagen and Hayman were unable to follow, but Thomas remained part of the nearest chasers of the Swiss time trial specialist.

They were unable to catch the quadruple world champion and Thomas had to fight for the remaining podium places. A late attack from Daniel Oss seemed to hand the Italian the runner-up position, but the Sky rider managed to catch him just before the line. With Peter Sagan (Cannondale) in tow, the Brit had, however, no chance in the sprint, and he had to be content with 4th.

Making progress

In the peloton, Boasson Hagen was 3rd in the sprint to give the team a second spot in the top 10, and sports director Servais Knaven was happy to see the team making progress.

“It’s so hard to win these races but we’re getting closer and closer," he said. "It’s good for our morale to know we have one of the strongest teams in the peloton and that will bode well for Flanders and Roubaix.”

According to the former winner of Paris-Roubaix, the result was a consequence of a team effort.

“It was unfortunate for G (Thomas, ed.) that Sagan chased onto his wheel because he did a great job in closing that gap to Oss," he said. “All in all we were very strong today. Gabba (Gabriel Rasch, ed.), Luke (Rowe, ed.) and Bernie (Bernhard Eisel, ed.) did some great work early on and Salvatore (Puccio, ed.) was unlucky to get a puncture at a key point in the race. The team did almost everything to plan but Cancellara was on great form and we couldn’t have done much more."

Cancellara showed his cards

The strength of Cancellara so close to the biggest cobbled classics have been cause for disillusion by many, but Knaven was able to see the positives in the fact that the Swiss has now showed his cards before the biggest races.

“It’s good to know what condition he’s in heading into the bigger races and we can now plan how to beat him," he said.

A cold Gent-Wevelgem

The next test for the British team's classics roster is Sunday's Gent-Wevelgem. Knaven expected the team to once again go for the victory, but feared for another epic day in the saddle after last Sunday's freezingly cold Sanremo experience.

“The guys will take it easy tomorrow and just stretch the legs for a few hours – maybe one or two small efforts – because there’s another 230km on the bike in cold conditions on Sunday," he explained. “It’s forecast to be -1, windy and snowing, so it’s going to be more like Siberia than northern Belgium, but it’s the same conditions for everybody and we’ll be good to go again and looking for another good performance.”

Gent-Wevelgem usually ends in a sprint of a select bunch and so the team will probably hope for a good performance by Boasson Hagen.

Starting at 14.15, you can follow the British team's next exploits on Belgian soil tomorrow at CyclingQuotes.com/live.