A rival Flemish newspaper, Het Volk, started the Omloop van Vlaanderen in 1945. Het Volk, a left-wing publication, wanted to initiate a new cycling event in Flanders as a rival race to what it saw as the Ronde's closeness to the Nazis.[1] The Ronde's organizers protested that the name was too close to their own – in Dutch there is little difference between Ronde and Omloop.