By contrast, Lidl-Trek have been in the ascendancy, often having the most numbers at the business end of the biggest Classics, and winning both Trofeo Alfredo Binda and Classic Brugge-De Panne with Elisa Balsamo. It’s too early to talk of a changing of the guard, but Lidl-Trek have so far this spring looked the equal of their rivals.
SD Worx-Protime’s dominance over the past few seasons has been especially apparent at the Tour of Flanders. Lotte Kopecky and Demi Vollering’s one-two here last year continued a successful streak that has seen them both win and place a rider at three of the four editions since 2020. This is still arguably the most prestigious race of the spring, and one for which all the team’s top stars assemble, joining forces to unleash the full might of their roster.
It’s a race that their leader Lotte Kopecky has made her own. Last year, she became the first rider in nearly two decades to win two successive Tour of Flanders titles, and now has the chance to attain the record for most ever victories here, in the rainbow stripes no less. As a star Belgian rider in a peloton that has been dominated by Dutch riders in recent years, she’s beloved by the Belgian public, who have celebrated wildly at her two victories. She remains the rider to beat, but hasn’t been quite as unstoppable this spring as last year — both she and her SD Worx-Protime team will be desperate to reassert their supremacy.
What sets the Tour of Flanders apart from the cobbled Classics raced so far this spring is just how much more difficult it is. Not only is it significantly longer than the others (at 163km, it’s the only cobbled classic other than Gent-Wevelgem to exceed 150km), it also features much more severe climbing. So far this spring the Classics have been characterised by how unselective they’ve been, with each of the last four WorldTour races ending in large group sprints, with fast finishers Elisa Balsamo and Lorena Wiebes sharing the spoils. That’s unlikely to be the case here.
In total there will be seven cobbled sectors and 12 climbs, among them some of the hardest and most notorious in Flanders. The first of these dozen climbs, the Wolvenberg, does not come until 72km, almost halfway into the race, but from there they can thick and fast with an intensity sure to make for thrilling racing. The Molenberg comes next, followed by Marlboroughstraat, Berendries, Valkenberg and Kapelleberg, all tackled within less than 25km of each other.
Things start to get really serious with the next climb, the Koppenberg. This is the one with the fiercest cobblestones and the most agonising gradients, and unlike anything the riders have tackled so far this spring. The race will be in pieces by the summit, but there’s still another 45km and five climbs to ride, including some of the very toughest of the race. The Steenbeekdries, Taaienberg and Oude Kruisberg are up next, followed by the famous final double-header of Oude Kwaremont and Paterberg. The long, drawn-out demands of the former followed by the short, sharp shock of the latter has become the race’s signature, and it’s on these two climbs that the race’s final attacks will be made, prior to the 13km run-in to the finish
Lotte Kopecky
It’s not every year a Belgian gets the chance to win their nation’s biggest race while wearing the famous rainbow jersey as world champion, so Lotte Kopecky will be desperate to make it a hat-trick of successive Tour of Flanders victories on Sunday. That rainbow jersey will make her very visible in the peloton, and all eyes will be on her, but if she attacks with the same power that saw her win Strade Bianche and Nokere Koerse already this spring, nobody will be able to stop her. She does seemed to have lost a bit of sprinting speed, evidenced by her being out-sprinted into second-place by Marianne Vos at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and Elisa Balsamo at Trofeo Alfredo Binda, and was isolated and worked over in defeat at Dwars door Vlaanderen, so will probably want to strike out alone at some point — something she did to devastating effect last year, when she went solo on the Oude Kwaremont.
Marianne Vos
Thirty-six-years-old and still looking as good as ever, Marianne Vos (Visma-Lease a Bike) has only raced twice in Belgium this year, but on both occasions she has won. Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and Dwars door Vlaanderen were, by some counts, the 249th and 250th wins of her career, and all of her experience and expertise was on display as she covered the right moves and timed her sprints to perfection to win both. The only question mark is whether she can cope with the extra climbing demands of the Tour of Flanders, a race she has struggled at in recent years: in her five appearances since last winning here in 2013, her highest finish is a mere 12th place. But she has certainly been climbing very well so far this spring, and can so often be relied upon to rise to the occasion.
Elisa Longo Borghini
This has been one of Elisa Longo Borghini’s best build-ups to the Tour of Flanders in years. She arrives at the Ronde off the back of podium finishes at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and Strade Bianche, plus victory at Trofeo Oro, and has looked especially good on the cobbled climbs, always present at the front. It’s been many years since her sole victory here in 2015, but she’s a consistent performer here, making the top 10 on five occasions since, including third-place last year. The difficult parcours of the Ronde suits her, and in this kind of form nobody can afford to let her get up the road.
Shirin van Anrooij
Together with Elisa Longo Borghini, Shirin van Anrooij has this spring formed the double-act that has animated the classics this spring, forcing the selections at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and Dwars door Vlaanderen and putting the formerly unflappable SD Worx-Protime under pressure. The Lidl-Trek pair ride perfectly in sync with one another, and together both made the top six at the aforementioned Classics and Strade Bianche. As the junior of the two riders, Van Anrooij lacks Borghini’s experience and career credentials, but she can’t be underestimated by her rivals, or be allowed too much leeway to up the road. The 22-year-old may be without a win so far this season, or, for that matter, any at WorldTour level for over a year, but she’s been on the verge of a major, star-making victory — and Sunday’s Tour of Flanders might be it.
Lorena Wiebes
No rider has put together a better string of results going into the Tour of Flanders than Lorena Wiebes who has won three times (Gent-Wevelgem, Ronde van Drenthe, Altez GP Oetingen) and once finished runner-up (Nokere Koerse) in all of her previous four races. In the past, the extra climbing of the Tour of Flanders relative to these races has proven too much for the Dutchwoman, but she has developed much as a rider and can now stick with the best on the climbs — as was the case at Gent-Wevelgem, where she was just two riders along with Pfeiffer Georgi to initially stay with Kopecky’s attack on the Kemmelberg. Kopecky will still be SD Worx’s main woman, but Wiebes provides a deadly plan-B.
SD Worx-Protime might not have been at their peak so far this spring, but for the Tour of Flanders they’re bringing their a-team. As well as Kopecky and Wiebes, Demi Vollering and Marlen Reusser will be lining-up, both capable of either launching their own dangerous attacks, or controlling the race and dragging back attackers, depending on what’s required of them. Neither has reached peak form so far this spring, but will be game-changers if they do so in time for Sunday.
As for Lidl-Trek, their other option after the aforementioned duo of Borghini and Van Anrooij will be Elisa Balsamo. The Italian has been their star of the spring so far, winning both Trofeo Alfredo Binda and Brugge-De Panne, and looks the match of anyone in a sprint. However, the Tour of Flanders is rarely decided in that manner, and the climbs here have proven too much for her in the past, and she’d never before finished higher than 15th here.
Better suited to the race is Kasia Niewiadoma (Canyon-SRAM). The Pole can always be relied upon to be in the thick of things at the Tour of Flanders, making the top 10 in here in all but one of her last seven appearances, and, based on her devastated reaction at the end of Strade Bianche, appears to be growing ever more frustrated at her failure to land a big win in recent years. She’ll lead a strong Canyon-SRAM team also featuring Elise Chabbey and Chloe Dygert, who can be relied upon to make the race aggressive.
While Niewiadoma has spent the weeks since her fourth-place finish at Strade Bianche training rather than racing, Puck Pieterse (Fenix-Deceuninck) and Pfeiffer Georgi (Team DSM-Firmenich)-PostNL have been among the most impressive races in the cobbled Classics preceding the Tour of Flanders. The former has taken to the Classics like a duck to water in what has been her first full road spring campaign, featuring at the head of proceedings in virtually all of the races she’s competed at and claiming podium finishes at Ronde van Drenthe and Trofeo Alfredo Binda, while Georgi has been one of the best on the climbs, impressing on the Kemmelberg at Gent-Wevelgem, and finishing fifth at Trofeo Alfredo Binda.
Silvia Persico was one of the standouts from last year’s Tour of Flanders, finishing fourth having been the last rider to stay with Kopecky before she went solo. The Italian will lead UAE Team ADQ, for whom Chiara Consonni provides another option as a fast finisher having improved on the climbs this year. In-form riders worthy of note include Thalita de Jong (Lotto Dstny) and Letizia Paternoster (Liv Alula Jayco); the Movistar duo of Emma Norsgaard and Arlenis Sierra would be dangerous in a sprint; and Alison Jackson (EF Education-Cannondale) shouldn’t ever be discounted again after her surprise Paris-Roubaix triumph last year.
If the pattern of this spring is to continue, then Lidl-Trek could be able to outnumber SD Worx-Protime, and overcome even the might of two-time Ronde winner Lotte Kopecky. In such an event, Elisa Longo Borghini will be especially dangerous, and has the terrain here to do what she couldn’t in previous races this spring, and drop fast finishers like Marianne Vos to go solo. Three of the last four Tour of Flanders have been won by a solo attack, and Borghini looks like the rider best equipped to do so this year.
]]>Of the five races that make up cycling’s established ‘Monument’ Classics, the Tour of Flanders is arguably the most open and unpredictable. It’s the only one that no rider has ever won more than three times, and the last ten editions has only seen one repeat winner.
That sole rider is Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck), who has a chance to join the six riders on the record list with three career wins here. At last week’s E3 Saxo Bank Classic he looked untouchable, making a strong case for outright favourites status for this Sunday’s big race, but the build-up this spring has been full of twists and ever-developing narratives.
At opening weekend, Visma-Lease a Bike looked capable of battering all other teams into submission through sheer strength of numbers, winning Omloop Het Nieuwsblad with Jan Tratnik and Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne with Wout van Aert. But then injury and fitness problems ravaged the team, clearing the way for Alpecin-Deceuninck to dominate, with Jasper Philipsen taking Milan-Sanremo and Brugge-De Panne, and Van der Poel at E3 Saxo Bank; only for Van der Poel’s unbeatable status to be immediately demolished two days later at Gent-Wevelgem by a resurgent Lidl-Trek, who worked him over to set their Mads Pedersen up for victory at Gent-Wevelgem.
A crash yesterday at Dwars Doors Vlaanderen provided another dramatic, and unwanted, twist in the pre-Flanders build-up, ruling out star rider and home favourite Wout van Aert from competing in the race he has spent all spring building up towards. That crash has thrown many other teams’ plans up in the air, too, with several of the riders who had established themselves over the course of the spring as among the top favourites for Flanders all also falling: Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek), Biniam Girmay (Intermarché–Wanty) and Jasper Stuyven, the latter. Stuyven is, like Van Aert, out for sure and the others’ participation is in doubt, but there will still be plenty of big names on the startlist worthy of the biggest Belgian race of the year.
Route map sourced via Tour of Flanders website
As ever, the Tour of Flanders takes in many of the steep hills, twisting roads, cobbled stretches and viscous bergs made famous by the races held in this cycling-mad part of the world. It is essentially a greatest hits of the landmarks we’ve already seen tackled earlier in the spring, from climbs like Berendries, Molenberg and Valkenberg tackled earlier in the race, to key cobbled climbs such as Berg Ten Houte, Kruisberg and Taaienberg that play such a key role during the race’s dramatic endgame.
Most crucial of all will, as ever, be the Oude Kwaremont and Paterberg circuit that has been the race’s pièce de résistance since 2012. This year, we’ve already seen huge drama on both at the E3 Saxo Bank Classic, where Van der Poel and Wout van Aert respectively attacked and crashed on the latter, and Van Aert attempted his ultimately futile chase of his rival on the former, highlighting just how much damage these two particular bergs can do. And at the Tour of Flanders, they will pose even more of a challenge; the Paterberg will here be tackled twice and the Kwaremont three times, while the huge crowds sure to swarm both climbs will force the riders to climb via the cobbles, with the guttering at the side of the road the gravitated towards at E3 Saxo Bank covered by fans. By the time they reach the summit of the Paterberg for the final 13km run-in to the finish, the riders will be in ones and twos.
And whereas these climbs have been seen before this spring, there is one special landmark that’s reserved just for the Tour of Flanders: The Koppenberg, the impossibly steep berg with sadistically nasty cobblestones that’s like no other used in cycling. Watching the riders climb this berg is one of the highlights of the season, and one of the reasons the Ronde is such a special race that will split the race into pieces, and ensure only the very strongest will be in contention for the win.
Mathieu van der Poel
This is the chance for Mathieu van der Poel to confirm himself as one of, if not the, greatest ever competitors at the Tour of Flanders. A third career victory would put him joint-top of the all-time list of most wins in the race’s history, which is especially remarkable when you remember that he is still only 29-years-old, and has finished 2nd, 2nd, and 4th on his only other appearances here.
The Dutchman has enjoyed a near-perfect spring so far, guiding Alpecin-Deceuninck teammate Jasper Philipsen to victory at Milan-Sanremo before claiming a resounding victory for himself at E3 Saxo Bank when he rode everyone off his wheel as early as 44km from the finish. His only setback was at Gent-Wevelgem, where he was beaten by Mads Pedersen in a two-up sprint, but since then his status as favourite has solidified as many of his top rivals have either been hurt or ruled out all-together at the crash during Wednesday’s Dwars door Vlaanderen. Add to that the absence of the man who beat him last year, Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates), and it’s clear that this race is his to lose.
It’s hard to see Wednesday's Dwars door Vlaanderen as anything other than a disaster for Visma-Lease a Bike, a race that made headlines not for the result, but for the crash that brought a devastating end to Wout van Aert’s hopes of competing at the cobbled Monuments he has spent months carefully preparing for. Yet it shouldn’t be overlooked that they did actually end up winning the race, through the rider who has arguably been their star of the season so far: Matteo Jorgenson.
Given the form and injury problems suffered by Visma-Lease a Bike’s Classics squad as a whole at the moment, Jorgenson is the man now expected to step up and claim leadership status at the Tour of Flanders, and there are reasons to believe he could be in the mix for victory — wins at Paris-Nice and now Dwars door Vlaanderen show he is a rounded and immensely talented young rider, and he’s already proven he can handle the longer distance of the Ronde with a top ten finish on debut last year. All hope is not yet lost for Visma-Lease a Bike.
For a while Mads Pedersen has been the best of the rest behind the peloton’s elite Classics riders, finishing in fourth-place at the most recent editions of Paris-Roubaix, the World Championships and Milan-Sanremo, and third at last year’s Tour of Flanders. At Gent-Wevelgem last weekend, he finally found a way to get the better of them, combining brilliantly with his Lidl-Trek teammates to put Van der Poel under pressure, and subsequently outsprint him for victory at the finish. With such a strong team supporting him, a first ever Monument victory had looked on the cards this weekend, however his fitness is now a huge doubt following his involvement at the Dwars door Vlaanderen crash — even if he is able to ride, can he possibly have the best legs needed to win such a tough and competitive race, and will his team be strong enough now Jasper Stuyven is also out?
Given his form this spring, which has seen him take successive victories at Milan-Sanremo and Brugge-De Panne before claiming fourth place at Gent-Wevelgem, it’s impossible to ignore Jasper Philipsen as a candidate for the Tour of Flanders. But in reality, the extra climbs of the Tour of Flanders (a race he has never before managed to finish) is likely to be too much even for a sprinter with climbing legs as strong as his, and means the roles between himself and Alpecin-Deceuninck teammate Van der Poel is set to be reversed from those at Milan-Sanremo, with Philipsen playing domestique this time. Still, he has surprised us before to finish second place at last year’s Paris-Roubaix, and would be a potential benefactor in a tactical, less selective race that ends in a group finish.
You can never be sure what you’re going to get with Alberto Bettiol. The EF Education-EasyPost rider can often be anonymous, as evidenced by the three DNFs and finishes of 16th, 24th and 28th that make up six of his seven career Tour of Flanders appearances; but he can also astound with the occasional electric ride, as he did most notably here in 2019 when he escaped late on to take a surprise victory. So far this spring we’ve since more examples than usual of that top-for Bettiol, including a mighty 30km solo attack to win Milan-Torino, a fifth-place finish at Milan-Sanremo, and some very powerful attacks at Dwars door Vlaanderen before cramp put paid to his chances. There are many other more consistent riders who can be better depended on to bank top ten finishes, but few with the x-factor Bettiol possesses to potentially win.
Despite losing some of their top riders, Lidl-Trek and Visma-Lease a Bike will still hope they have the strength in numbers to unsettle Van der Poel. For the former, Jonathan Milan has been a revelation this spring, proving he can ride over the cobbles as well as being one of quickest sprinters in the world, while Toms Skujiņš will have a more senior role now.
While these riders have upped their game, Visma-Lease a Bike’s squad have been hampered by all manner of problems, with Christophe Laporte ruled out as well as Van Aert, but Tiesj Benoot, Omloop Het Nieuwsblad winner Jan Tratnik and former Flanders runner-up Dylan van Baarle all have the pedigree to be involved in the fight for victory.
Stefan Küng is a reliable performer at the Tour of Flanders, finishing fifth and sixth here in the last two editions, but his lack of a killer instinct was painfully clear in the finale of Dwars door Vlaanderen, where he settled for third-place having been unable to drop the other riders in the final selection. He’ll be part of a strong Groupama-FDJ team also featuring former podium finisher Valentin Madouas and young breakthrough talent Laurence Pithie. They even look stronger than Soudal–Quick-Step, the former kings of the cobbles who have toiled all spring. They’ll be hoping Julian Alaphilippe or 2021 winner Kasper Asgreen made an unlikely late discovery of form.
In the absence of Van Aert and Stuyven, home Belgium hopes look unusually slim. Tim Wellens (UAE Team Emirates) is probably their best hope aside from Jasper Philipsen, especially after his fourth-place finish at E3 Saxo Classic, but he’s never finished inside the top 20 at the Ronde. From the other side of the world, Biniam Girmay (Intermarché–Wanty) had been showing promising form prior to the Dwars door Vlaanderen crash, and would be a danger in a sprint; as would Michael Matthews (Jayco-Alula), particularly on the back of his runner-up finish at Milan-Sanremo. By contrast, Matej Mohorič (Bahrain-Victorious) and young Oier Lazkano (Movistar) would look to win from attacking rather than sprinting, though it’s doubtful they have the legs to do so following a slight diminishing of form from strong starts to the spring.
He was already the favourite even before the dramatic crashes at Wednesday’s Dwars door Vlaanderen, but the loss of Wout van Aert and diminishing of Lidl-Trek’s squad now makes Mathieu van der Poel the overwhelming favourite. Having such a status can be a hindrance to even the best of riders, but he has a strong Alpecin-Deceuninck team to support him, and alone has the strength to launch attacks that not even the smartest tactical ploys can overcome.
]]>Tour of Flanders winner 2016
Lizzie Deignan, (then Lizzie Armitstead), was the reigning world champion in 2016. She’d already come second in the Tour of Flanders in 2014, having to police the chase group while team-mate Ellen van Dijk escaped to victory, but went one better in 2016. As the men’s race celebrated its 100th edition, both were won by world champions, as Peter Sagan took victory later in the day.
I’d been trying to win Flanders for a few years, but it never quite came together. I was only interested in the win. I’d been on the podium [in 2014] – I was winning the World Cup and I was in great form, but then my team-mate Ellen van Dijk attacked and she won the race. That was great, but it was one of those missed opportunities. Other times I peaked too soon, because it’s a tricky weekend to get right. You want to hit the ground running at the Classics, but if you’re pinging in Nieuwsblad, it’s hard to maintain it to Flanders.
At the training camp in January, we would all say our personal goals, so nobody has a hidden agenda. And I said outright, I want this one. I need to tick the box.
On the day, I remember feeling okay, but not extraordinary. I never felt good in the race, which is probably why I won, because when you’re feeling good in a race like Flanders, you’re tempted to attack when you don’t really need to. And if you’re not feeling great, you make sure your position into the climbs is better; you don’t take anything for granted. But I was very focused and was thinking, it doesn’t matter what the sensations are, I know I’m strong enough to win it.
I wanted to thin the group on the Oude Kwaremont, which I was successful in doing, and then over the top, there’s always that moment where either the group that you’re in works together and establishes the move, or messes around. And I got co-operation from Emma Johansson.
I wanted to win solo. I didn’t want to take anybody to the line. I thought the Paterberg would be where I would go, but I couldn’t drop Emma. She was a very difficult rider to drop, though maybe on my best day I could have.
From there, it was a question of being a bit selfish. I worked with Emma, because I didn’t want to play the game with team-mates behind. I wanted to win, and I might not have done that in any other race, but it was Flanders, the big one. If I’d been sensible I’d have sat on Emma, but then my chances of winning would go down dramatically. Luckily I had the full backing of my team-mates and nobody was pissed off, but they might have been if I’d come second. And the sprint wasn’t really a sprint. In Flanders, it’s about who can get themselves out of the saddle, and the first person to sit down is the person who loses, because by then it’s about whatever you’ve got left in you.
To win Flanders, you need a strong team, undoubtedly. And you have to be able to push capacity over climbs repeatedly, with very quick recovery. It’s a race where I like to be in the first 20 of the peloton - you save so much energy by having good positioning. And details like the travelling: for Het Nieuwsblad you fly in on the Friday and race on the Saturday, whereas with Flanders you fly in on Wednesday, to give you time to get over the travelling and get a feel for the roads. It’s not quite a World Championships or Olympics, but pretty much the next thing.
Tour of Flanders winner 2005, 2006 and 2012
Tom Boonen was the most successful cobbled classics rider in history – he holds the outright or joint record for wins in E3 Harelbeke, Gent-Wevelgem, the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix. In the Tour of Flanders, local knowledge, combined with a strong sprint and huge endurance made him almost the perfect rider for the race.
I liked the old parcours. You still got the same guys winning, but there were always more people, maybe 15 or 20 at the start, who you were a bit wary of - they could win, because tactics came in a little bit more. With the new parcours since 2012 it became a lot harder: the final was harder, and the top favourites are narrowed down to four or five and maybe only two real top favourites. And most of the time the favourite will win the race because it’s so hard.
To win Flanders you need big resistance, mentally as well, because Flanders is a race you have to fight in. It’s like a boxing match. You fight for every corner, you fight for every climb, you fight on top of the climb, you fight for the descent.
The first 100 kilometres were always a nightmare, and the most dangerous part of the race, because you want to save energy, so you stay away from the front, sitting in the peloton, or at the back. Then for the last 150 kilometres, you get to the front and start racing, trying to maximise everything but also trying to save as much energy as possible. And one position can make a big difference in Flanders - it doesn’t seem much but if a gap appears you can lose 10, 15, 30 seconds, and you have to close it. Every decision you make can lose you the race, and you have to stay on top of things, spending just enough energy to stay in front so that you save energy. You never know if you’ve made the right decisions until you cross the finish line.
Winning the Tour of Flanders means being aware of your own strengths and being sure that you’re able to do it, but not being too sure about it, not being cocky and being humble in the race. Maybe a little too humble, so you show less than you have.
The years when I was the best rider on the day were the most difficult, because everybody was looking at me, or following me, or blocking me. The first win was the easiest - it was of course difficult physically, but I was still a young guy and I got a bit more liberty. But I also lost a few Flanders because there were too many people on my wheel. If you have 10 or 15 world class riders following you, you’re losing the race. We had two years when we had Stijn Devolder in front, and he won. I was happy for Stijn at that moment. But when you talk about your career, those are races you lost.
You can’t specifically learn how to race Flanders. You have guys who are just good bike racers; not necessarily the strongest ones, but people who have this Flemish gene in them and they understand how the race works. They smell when they have to be in front, they always make the right decisions. You don’t always know why you are there, but you are there. And when you are good enough and are feeling good, you stop processing everything and just follow your instinct. When you start thinking about things, they go wrong. But the difference between Flanders and other races is that it forces you to race, and there’s no other way. You need to race to win the race, and race at the right time.
Tour of Flanders winner 1993, 1995 and 1998
Johan Museeuw has the best record in the Tour of Flanders of any rider in cycling history. Though several riders have won the Ronde three times, Museeuw also came second three times and third twice. He tended to win with long solo attacks, though he was also a strong sprinter.
Winning the Tour of Flanders is a long story that begins when you are young, and have dreams as a racer. I was a cyclo-cross racer when I started, and that was already my starting point to win the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix. But even when I started out as a rider, I didn’t know that I would become a professional rider in the future, and from there I didn’t know that I would win the Tour of Flanders one day. You develop, you race and it is only the first time you finish on the podium, you realise that some day you can win.
I think you are born as a Tour of Flanders winner or a Tour de France winner, just as you are born a climber, or a time-trial rider. I was born a spring Classics rider. I was a good sprinter in races like the Tour de France but I wasn’t fast enough to be a sprinter like Mark Cavendish. I had good explosiveness and good power for a short time, which was okay in a sprint, but that’s what you need for Flanders. I’ve also got a big engine, which you also need for Flanders – I was better than the others after 200 kilometres of racing.
I was also good at riding on the cobblestones. I was good in bad weather. That meant I had all the elements to win Flanders, but that still wasn’t enough. Then I did more training that was specific for the Tour of Flanders – small intervals, long-distance training, riding on the cobblestones... I eventually became a three- time winner; I was three times second, two times third, 11 times in the top 15, so that means something.
You know how cycling is in Belgium – it’s huge, it’s special, it’s different than in other countries. So even the first time I finished on the podium, I was famous at home. But as a rider you don’t think about how you can become famous. You just want to win some races. Only a few professionals are winners. You have winners, and you have domestiques, and then you have riders who don’t know who they are – they try to win, and sometimes they do, but they lose more often than they win. In recent generations, Philippe Gilbert was a winner, Tom Boonen was a winner, Fabian Cancellara was a winner. Now Wout van Aert is a winner, Remco Evenepoel, and Alaphilippe also. Of course, Mark Cavendish is a winner. But you have just a few riders who can say, ‘Every year, I will win five or 10 races.’
The three times I won the Tour of Flanders, I was stronger than the rest. But I also lost some editions when I was the strongest in the race, like when I lost to Gianni Bugno in a sprint [in 1994]. That day I was the strongest, but if you don’t win, you can’t say anything. You have to come into the race in 100 per cent condition; 90 per cent isn’t enough. You have to get to the final without spending energy, but that is quite difficult. For us, the beginning was always the Oude Kwaremont – if you could get there in pole position, you could say, okay, the stress is over. Now the strongest will survive.
Tour of Flanders winner 2010
Grace Verbeke was about as local a rider as you can get for the Tour of Flanders. She was born in Roeselare, just 25 miles from the edge of the Flemish Ardennes, and though she wasn’t one of the major stars of the sport, was able to combine local knowledge with bold and clever tactics to win in 2010.
When I started racing, I didn’t think I could win the Tour of Flanders. But as my career went on, I was already getting some good results and I felt I was making enough progress to get to the top. In 2010, my ambition was to be on the podium of a World Cup race, but to win was more than I could ever dream of. I was no sprinter, so I had to make the race hard and go on the attack. I was not really a time-triallist either – whenever I did a good time-trial it was because I was in good shape, but I was no specialist. I liked races where you had short climbs, and cobblestones, like in Omloop and the Tour of Flanders. They were the kind of races where riders would get dropped from the back of the peloton – survival races.
I ended 2009 with a good result at the World Championships, where I was ninth. That gave me good motivation during that winter. I had a good training camp before the races started, and then I already had a good start to my season at Omloop [third place]. I felt good physically and mentally, and I was ready for it. I had to win by attacking, and I was the underdog. I played on that and attacked with 50 kilometres to the finish. The other girls said, whoa, it’s too early, but I went away with one other rider, Adrie Visser, and we immediately got a big gap. I think we had two minutes.
At the Muur van Geraardsbergen, I went solo, and after that I still had a lead of a minute. I was able to hold that to the finish line. I knew from when we were away that I would drop Adrie – I knew her a little bit as a rider, and she was very strong, but at climbing I felt that I was better. Every climb I set the tempo and she sat in my wheel, and then we were good together on the flat, but I knew I would lose her on the Muur.
The last five kilometres were the hardest – the wind was on my back and a bit to the side, but it was not flat. I only believed I would win at the last corner with 400 metres to go. At that time, this was one of the only races where there were a lot of spectators – Flanders and the World Championships. That cheered me up, and they pushed me all the way to the line, really motivating me – it gave me a lot of adrenaline to make it. I did everything that winter to be there in my best shape. I trained a lot on the course and did my intervals on the climbs. I also watched the men’s race to learn more. I’d already ridden it a few times – the first time I was 19 and on a club team, but already from that first experience, it was a trigger point for me to do better in the years afterwards.
To win the Tour of Flanders, you need to be a Flandrienne. You have to be a hard one. You need character and you have to fight for every stone. No fear of bad weather. You have to like hard races. I was the first Belgian winner and I think it was important for women’s cycling in Belgium; maybe it motivated girls to get on their bicycles and realise that they can also do those races.
Tour of Flanders winner 1985
When the Belgian public voted for their favourite ever edition of the Tour of Flanders, 1985 was their top choice. Terrible weather hit the race, and there were only 24 finishers. First place went to Eric Vanderaerden, what’s more, he did it wearing the Belgian champion’s jersey.
The Tour of Flanders is already one of the biggest races you can do in the whole year, and for me as a Belgian rider, it was even more important. To win it, you have to be a complete rider. You have to be good on the small climbs, you have to be not afraid of the wind, you have to be able to race on the small streets, on the cobblestones – it’s a little bit of everything. And then it depends on the race and the year. The year I won, in 1985, you also needed to be a little bit crazy. Because it was terrible, terrible cold that year. It was raining from start to finish, and it was only three or four degrees all day, so it was a very bad edition.
Already that made a difference because you can see your rivals saying, oh my god, it’s a 260 kilometre race, I have to do six or seven hours in that weather, and you know that you are already done with 20 or 25 per cent of them. It makes it easier. The other 75 per cent, you still have to beat them, but I think by the finish there were only 24 riders left in the race, and the last one was 15 minutes behind. The hardest thing was the cold, and you had to say to yourself, come on, if you’re cold, then everybody else is cold.
I had a flat tyre at the bottom of the Koppenberg. But luckily by that point the bunch was only 30 or 40 riders. It was no panic because I had a teammate close, and it was a front wheel, so we could change quickly. A lot of riders were walking on the Koppenberg so I was able to overtake them and get to the top. I came to the front of the bunch around 35 or 40 kilometres from the finish. At that point only Hennie Kuiper was ahead, maybe 30 seconds. So I crossed to him but my teammate Phil Anderson also joined us and we got to the Muur as three riders.
I attacked on the Muur, and rode alone from there for the last 20 kilometres alone to Ninove. Phil Anderson sat in Kuiper’s wheel – of course he would have liked to win himself, but you always have to be happy when the team wins. It sounds simple, but there is never a simple victory in a big race. There was a small bunch in 1985, but they were the strongest riders. It was one of the biggest wins of my career, and I think everybody wants to win Flanders. I never won it again – sometimes it was luck, and you crash at a bad moment. Maybe 30 or 40 per cent of your win is luck. It’s a very complex race.
Tour of Flanders winner 2011
The 2011 Tour of Flanders was historic for being the last to use the infamous Muur-Bosberg finale. But it was also one of the greatest races there has ever been, as the advantage swung back and forth between the favourites, culminating in an all-out fight between the 12 survivors who made the front group. Nuyens timed his race to perfection, and beat Sylvain Chavanel and Fabian Cancellara in a three-rider sprint, just ahead of their rivals.
There are 100 different ways to win Flanders, and probably even more. But I think everybody has to use their own qualities, because what works for you won’t work for me. I knew I was not the strongest, even though when I was at 100 per cent I was one of the strongest. And I was at 100 per cent in 2011. So, you have to use your strengths, and for me, the plan was just trying to hang on as long as possible, and then play the game in the final.
That year was also a strange race, because Cancellara went from pretty far out, and the race seemed over. But one way or another, we were coming back on the Muur, and from there, the race started again. I was still feeling okay, because everybody has their own story in such races. When you win, that story matters, and when you don’t win, it doesn’t matter. I think I was always pretty cool when I was in a winning position or where there was a possibility to win. For me, it was always a matter of looking at: who’s in this group? Which teams are in the group? Which team has two riders? Which riders get along? Which riders hate each other?
We were 12 or 13 riders, and I took two or three minutes to analyse the breakaway. I tried a couple of moves, but small moves, not all-in. Trying to feel, who was reacting? It’s always a matter of feeling how the spirit is at that moment in the group. At the first attack, most of the time people react immediately, because they’re all fresh. The second and third time, also. But the 10th time, they start to think, if I close it again, there’s going to be a counter. The longer it takes, the more dangerous it gets, and to play the game you have to be ready to lose if you really want to win. Because if you look like you really want to win and you’re always the first to react, you know that’s the guy who wants to win, and actually that’s the easiest guy to beat, in my opinion. Or you have people who have already won a big Classic – it’s easier for them, because if they’re winning their eighth or ninth Classic, it’s cool. If you are on zero wins and you win one, it’s a big difference, so it’s not that easy to stay cool.
Obviously Cancellara was strong, and the moment he made his move, I knew I had to follow because once you’re 30 metres behind a guy like that, it’s very difficult to come back. And in the sprint, I used the situation really well. It was my luck that Cancellara saw Boonen coming from behind and kept the pace high, and also I think Chavanel didn’t want Boonen there. Cancellara’s acceleration was really impressive, and I lost some distance, but once I changed my gear, I really felt like the day was mine. I think if they ran that edition of the Tour of Flanders 10 times, I’d be happy with one more win, but in that sprint, I think I was going to win nine times out of 10.
It was announced last week that Visma-Lease a Bike would be forced to start Dwars door Vlaanderen without Christophe Laporte or Dylan van Baarle, with the French rider suffering from a saddle sore and a stomach bug and the Dutchman also falling ill in the lead-up to the race. Jan Tratnik, another key domestique for Wout van Aert in the Classics, has also been plagued with misfortune, abandoning Dwars door Vlaanderen early due to being unwell, unable to play a role for his team.
If the Omloop het Nieuwsblad winner’s retirement from the Dwars door Vlaanderen wasn’t bad enough for the Visma squad, Wout van Aert was later part of a serious crash midway through the race which took out the majority of the favourites for the Tour of Flanders on Sunday. Van Aert suffered abrasions across his back and looked to be in extreme discomfort after the crash, he was taken away in an ambulance and his team has since confirmed a broken collarbone and ribs. His will not participate in the Tour of Flanders.
But as their leader headed to hospital, the scenes at the front of Dwars door Vlaanderen painted a very different picture for Visma-Lease a Bike. Both Paris-Nice winner Matteo Jorgenson and former Strade Bianche winner Tiesj Benoot found themselves in the front group as they approached the final, steep bergs in Flanders, providing a beacon of hope on a day which the Dutch team would otherwise have hoped to forget.
As the only team with two riders in the front group, Visma-Lease a Bike had a big numerical advantage as they approached the final 20 kilometres of racing. Jorgenson commented after the race that it was part of the team’s strategy to ensure they had multiple cards to play in the finals of big Classics, and they controlled the race situation to perfection at Dwars door Vlaanderen. Jorgenson launched a perfectly-timed move after a flurry of attacks with 7 kilometres of the race remaining, at which point none of his breakaway companions were able to respond after a testing day in the Flemish hills. From that point onwards, all that was left was for the American rider to time trial to the line and Benoot to mark any moves from the group behind – the result was an emphatic solo win for Jorgenson, the biggest one-day victory of his career so far.
So while Wout van Aert’s crash is a huge blow for Visma-Lease a Bike, the duo of Benoot and Jorgenson paint a brighter picture looking ahead to the Tour of Flanders on Sunday. The 24-year-old finished in ninth place in De Ronde last year when riding for Movistar, and appears to have hugely improved on his condition since moving to Visma-Lease a Bike at the start of this season. His form at Dwars door Vlaanderen is proof that Jorgenson has the ability to win at the highest level on the cobbles, and the part Benoot played in supporting him should not be underestimated, either. When the older rider attacked on the Nokere climb a few moments before his teammate made his winning move, Benoot was able to distance his breakaway companions seemingly with little trouble, something that should give him confidence ahead of Flanders.
The exact line-up for Visma-Lease a Bike in the Tour of Flanders is yet to be confirmed by the Dutch team but they do have replacement options by bringing in riders like Julien Vermote and brothers Tim and Mick van Dijke. Van Aert would undoubtedly have been extremely marked in the race over the Flanders hills, and it could end up being to Jorgenson’s benefit that he doesn't have the same pressure as his Belgian teammate in what would be his home race. There’s no denying that in an ideal situation, Visma-Lease a Bike would be lining up on Sunday with their superstar Classics rider ready to go, but Jorgenson and Benoot’s ability to have a serious impact on the race should not be underestimated.
]]>Perhaps we should have already read the signs of disarray within the team earlier today, when a report by GCN surfaced that Demi Vollering – last year’s Tour de France Femmes winner – would leave the team at the end of 2024 (according to SD Worx’s team boss, Danny Stam.) The news story was quickly followed by a Tweet from the team’s own account which stated: "We made Demi Vollering a generous offer and indicated that this should be responded to before a certain date. Vollering's management did not respond to this. Therefore, we assume that Vollering will leave the team at the end of the year. The report in the media that we recently sat down with Demi or her management is not true."
The conflicting accounts from within the team regarding Vollering’s contract point to conflict within the Dutch squad, especially considering that SD Worx has offered world champion Lotte Kopecky a contract until 2028. It was undoubtedly an unsettling way for Vollering to begin the first race in her current Belgian Classics campaign and, from the way they were racing, it looked as if the rider's feathers could have been ruffled by the discourse too.
A crucial moment came with just under 30 kilometres of the race remaining, when the team of Lidl-Trek decided to put pressure on SD Worx by forcing a move over the cobblestones. Shirin van Anrooij, Lucinda Brand and Elisa Longo Borghini were the riders from the American squad who were ripping things up at the front of the race, and the jerseys of Team SD Worx-Protime were nowhere to be seen. It’s been years since the Dutch team have found themselves on the back foot like this in one of the biggest races of the season, and the likes of Kopecky and Vollering were forced to panic as they scrambled to regain ground on their rivals.
An untimely puncture for Vollering put her out of contention, though Kopecky did manage to bridge across to the front group, her world champion stripes steadily coming into view behind the breakaway group. When the Belgian rider eventually made the catch, though, the work was far from done. With the duo of Van Anrooij and Longo-Borghini in the group for Lidl-Trek, as well as fast finishers Marianne Vos (Visma-Lease a Bike) and Letizia Paternoster (Liv-Alula-Jayco) also present, Kopecky once again found herself outnumbered. She might be the world champion, but even Kopecky can’t mark every move when she’s alone in a group of six, and when Van Anrooij attacked and Vos went with her, the world champion had little response.
It’s not a situation that Kopecky is especially used to and it was clear that she missed the company of riders like Marlen Reusser or Vollering in the front selection today. With the Tour of Flanders fast approaching on Sunday, SD Worx will need to go back to the drawing board in order to figure out how to get the better of a flying Marianne Vos and a Lidl-Trek team with supreme collective strength. Trying to boost morale in the Dutch team will surely be made harder, though, with the extremely public controversy surrounding Vollering’s contract that comes with added stress and tension for all involved.
While Dwars door Vlaanderen isn’t a race which holds the same prestige as the Tour of Flanders or Paris-Roubaix, it should be bookmarked as the event that signified a big change in the dynamic of the women’s peloton. Lidl-Trek now appear to be, by far, the dominant team ahead of the Tour of Flanders, and SD Worx are no longer the unflappable superpower we once thought of them as. The likes of Vos and Van Anrooij will take extreme confidence from their results at Dwars door Vlaanderen, while Kopecky will undoubtedly be more motivated than ever to prove that she’s still the best Classics rider in the peloton.
It’s shaping up to be a big showdown in the Tour of Flanders on Sunday – is this the end of SD Worx’s dominance, or just a bump in the road?
]]>Less than one week ago, Lidl-Trek were enjoying a Classics season for the ages. Jasper Stuyven was in the form of his life, finishing in a career-best second place at the E3 Saxo Classic. A few days later, Mads Pedersen outsprinted the world champion on his way to a historic Gent-Wevelgem win. There was talk of the American team being reborn, riding the Classics with a similar style to Quick-Step in their heyday, announcing themselves as favourites for victory in the biggest one-day races in the world. But in just a few seconds, a messy touch of wheels and a gust of wind, Lidl-Trek went from the team controlling and animating Dwars door Vlaanderen, to the team with the most bodies scattered across the tarmac in Flanders.
Crashes like the one that took out Mads Pedersen, Jasper Stuyven and Alex Kirsch with just under 70 kilometres to go at Dwars door Vlaanderen don’t happen very often. Normally in the chaotic Classics, the front of the race is the safest place of them all – the mess and accidents happen further back. The helicopter shot doesn’t clearly show exactly what caused the domino effect to ripple through the group of favourites, but as the camera flashed back to shots of Stuyven cradling his collarbone and Pedersen analysing raw and bloody road rash, the hearts of cycling fans dropped everywhere.
It wasn’t just Lidl-Trek that fell victim to the unforgiving Belgian roads today. Alongside the riders in their ripped red, blue and yellow kit was the sad sight of Wout van Aert, his Visma-Lease a Bike jersey split open across his entire back revealing abrasions that were causing him to double over in pain. Biniam Girmay of Intermarché -Wanty was another of the fallen, another rider whose dreams of success in the Classics were broken.
Neither Lidl-Trek, Intermarché-Wanty or Visma-Lease a Bike have yet officially confirmed the extent of the injuries of riders like Stuyven, Girmay and Van Aert, but TV pictures of the trio being ferried away in an ambulance did not paint a hopeful picture surrounding their participation in the the Tour of Flanders in just three days' time (and there are reports of a broken collarbone for Wout van Aert.) Former Belgian champion Van Aert had planned the entire opening half of his season around targeting the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix, and his win in Kuurne-Brussel-Kuurne suggested he could be on his way to his first Monument win in 2024. After some weeks spent training at altitude, it was all shaping up for the Belgian rider to finally have some luck in the races he loves the most, until, on that wide, windy road in Flanders today, it wasn’t. Van Aert’s heartbreak was visible as he came to terms with the reality of his situation – it’s going to take some time for the Visma-Lease a Bike rider to get over this.
“I was on Wout’s wheel at the time it happened. Just before the Kanarieberg it was obviously a decisive moment in the race and we had two lead-out trains, Trek and us. Wout and Alex Kirsch came together and it was an ugly fall. I knew Wout was going to be out of the race at that point, we were going so fast," eventual race winner, Matteo Jorgenson, commented afterwards.
The potential absence of riders like Girmay, Van Aert, Stuyven and Pedersen at the Tour of Flanders on Sunday will undoubtedly have a serious impact on the race. So far, this season’s Classics have been close-run and exciting, largely thanks to the battles between Lidl-Trek, Visma-Lease a Bike and Alpecin-Deceuninck. What was once shaping up to be a nail-biting edition of De Ronde now is looking like it could be a much easier win for Mathieu van der Poel if many of the main favourites are unable to start following today’s crash.
While Jorgenson eventually took an impressive solo win at Dwars door Vlaanderen to salvage something for Visma-Lease a bike, the victory celebrations will undoubtedly be tarnished by the misfortune of his teammate. It was a day which showed that no one is immune to the risks of professional cycling – a race which was tainted by a catastrophic crash that impacted many of the favourites for the Tour of Flanders on Sunday.
]]>“It’s about looking forward, not looking back,” Jon Dutton, chief executive of British Cycling, told Rouleur. “We have aspirations to grow both these races, and we have some really exciting ideas, and we think there are opportunities out there, but 2024 is about us, hopefully, delivering them in a sustainable way and looking to the future.”
The two events will now form part of British Cycling’s new multi-discipline model titled ‘British Cycling Events’, which supports future growth, sustainability and success of races. But while the organisation and those working on the events are looking ahead, they’ve not shaken the race’s whole past, with Dutton adding that British Cycling has “inherited some legacy issues”. These issues likely stem from when British Cycling terminated its agreement with SweetSpot in the second half of 2023 after a financial dispute with SweetSpot reportedly owing £700,000 in unpaid instalments, dating back to 2022.
However, instead of dwelling on what has already happened, Dutton is keen to “draw a line and move forward”, especially as both the Tour of Britain events are approaching quickly, in particular, the women’s race, which remains in its original June spot. The Women’s Tour, now named the Tour of Britain Women, has previously been a six-stage race and has seen the world’s best riders win on British soil, including Marianne Vos, Lizzie Deignan, Kasia Niewiadoma, Demi Vollering and Elisa Longo Borghini. It was a stage race that paved the way for other stage races in the Women’s WorldTour, however, in 2023, the Women’s Tour was cancelled due to a lack of sponsorship and funding. Most significantly, it lost its title sponsor Škoda. It was a disappointing announcement during a year that saw the Tour de France Femmes reach a record number of viewing hours, and the UAE hosted its inaugural four-stage race. Those working behind the scenes at SweetSpot were keen to ensure the race was to happen in 2024, but while it will now go ahead, it will not be with SweetSpot.
The women's race this year has been shortened to four stages, but Dutton and the team at British Cycling are keen to ensure that it returns to its original format in 2025. “Equality,” Dutton firmly said regarding the importance of seeing the race return to six stages. “We strive for absolute equality, and we’re determined to do that very quickly. We will talk about what we will do for next year as it is so important from an equality perspective, but this year is just about re-establishing, and then growth thereafter.”
Having the women’s race back on the calendar is a step forward from 2023, but Jo Rowsell, gold Olympic cyclist and partnerships manager at Women in Sport, said that “downsizing the women’s race not only limits opportunities for female cyclists on the world stage but also deprives audiences of watching these incredible athletes at the top of their game, not least the hundreds of school children who line the route.”
She continued: “It is imperative that organisers of all such events recognise that this is about more than the event itself, it speaks to gender equality in cycling as a whole and sport as a whole. It even speaks to the ability of girls to dream. Women in Sport’s latest dream deficit report found that 51% of girls aged 13-24 say that more celebration of women's achievements in sport would encourage them to become more involved. Visibility matters to women and girls, and it should be considered very carefully.”
It’s understood that with such time pressures, organising the women’s event is a challenge, more challenging than the men’s race, which will remain in its September position on the UCI calendar, taking place from September 1 to 8. But reducing the women’s race still raises questions about the inequality women’s cycling faces, and this is not entirely down to British Cycling, also sponsors.
The team at British Cycling appreciate that partners, sponsors, riders, teams and fans may be uncertain about both the men's and women's races given its past and recent turbulence, however, they hope that there is also a sense of excitement amongst people, be that of the riders themselves or those who line the streets to see the sport’s biggest stars.
Dutton said that there is an “enormous amount of willingness” from local councils whom the team have approached to discuss hosting stages for either of the races, but he added: “The amount of goodwill is incredible. I would suggest that for 2025 already we have probably more commitments than we potentially can manage, which is a really great place to be in. For 2024, it’s just such a harsh timeline, and when a lot of people have already budgeted, a lot of them step forward saying they would have loved to have done something, but it’s just not possible for 2024. There’s also a lot of uncertainty from the political environment, but we’re solutions-focused, and we just keep addressing each challenge.”
One person who has been brought in to help with the time pressures is Rod Ellingworth, who was announced in early March as the new race director. Ellingworth has a long history with British Cycling, alongside a wealth of knowledge and experience, having been the team race director to Team Sky, now Ineos Grenadiers, for several years. He’s fiercely passionate about helping these races grow, according to Dutton, who added: “It’s been an absolute pleasure working with Rod so far. He’s come in with such positivity and is already talking about 2025, 2026, and 2027, and the hard thing is keeping up with him and staying focused on 2024. He is invested in making these races a success.”
Finding the right person to bring into the fold was key, and Dutton touched upon Ellingworth’s breadth of contacts and popularity within the teams in the WorldTour that will help make these events come to fruition. “It’s always good too to have someone full of energy, determination and passion,” Dutton said about working with Ellingworth.
The former racing director of the Ineos Grenadiers will work alongside Andy Hawes (route director), Mark Layland (start director), Paul Knight (finish director) and Lucy Jones (major events consultant), whose combined years of experience working on events such as the Tour of Britain reach over four decades.
The 2024 routes have not yet been released for both the men’s and women’s races, but Dutton said that they’ll be announced after the Easter break in the UK in early April. In the meantime, there is “good progress” with both events, he reassured.
Dutton himself, CEO of British Cycling since 2023, is an advocate for major sporting events and the long-lasting effects it can have on those spectating and those taking part. His career has seen him work on rugby events, but also plenty of cycling ones, too, with the Tour de France Grand Départ in Yorkshire in 2014 and the UCI's Glasgow World Championships last year.
"I think those events show how important any event can be in bringing people together and I think we're more than capable of doing that," Dutton said. "From a personal perspective, it's an absolute privilege to run these events, especially in the year of the Olympic and Paralympic Games. I feel a sense of optimism, determination, and positivity. It's a really important moment for British Cycling, and an exciting one as well."
]]>Neither rider has raced since Strade Bianche at the start of March, both skipping Women's WorldTour events such as Trofeo Binda and Gent-Wevelgem over the past couple of weeks. How this will have impacted each rider’s form remains to be seen – it could be that those such as Lidl-Trek’s Elisa Balsamo will benefit from the additional race kilometres they have in their legs, or perhaps the freshness of Vollering and Vos will elevate their form above that of their rivals. Vollering’s third place at Strade Bianche and Vos’s win at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad already this season have shown that both riders have had a solid winter and are certainly not lacking in the physical condition to challenge for victories in the biggest races – so how could their return to the women’s peloton impact the racing dynamic?
Kopecky and Vollering of SD Worx after finishing in first and third place at Strade Bianche Donne (Image: Getty)
Perhaps the most obvious result of Vollering coming back to racing will be an even stronger SD Worx squad. While the gap between the number one-ranked women’s team and the rest of the peloton seems to have somewhat lessened this season, SD Worx have still proven themselves to be extremely hard to beat. Teams such as Lidl-Trek came close to putting pressure on Lotte Kopecky in both Strade Bianche and Gent-Wevelgem by outnumbering the world champion, but this is going to prove harder to do when Vollering is also in the mix for SD Worx.
However, an additional leader in the Dutch team has shown to be a double-edged sword in the past. In the 2023 edition of Strade Bianche, Kopecky and Vollering sprinted against each other for victory – a relatively unprecedented move when two teammates come together to the finish line. That wasn’t the only occasion last season where there appeared to be confusion between the two talented SD Worx riders regarding which of them had leadership in the team, either.
Last year, Vollering took victory in Dwars door Vlaanderen with a solo move on the cobbled ascents that come late on in the race, and she’ll be keen to defend her title in 2024. Equally, the improvement that Kopecky has made in her climbing abilities this season has been well-documented, and it seems unlikely that she will struggle on short climbs like the Nokereberg this season. It’s likely that, eventually, either Vollering or Kopecky will need to sacrifice their chances for the other to go for victory and if they lack cohesion when making this decision, this could provide a perfect opportunity on which their rivals should capitalise.
Marianne Vos wins the 2024 edition of Omloop het Nieuwsblad (Image: Getty)
One of those key rivals will, of course, be three-time former world champion Vos of Visma-Lease a Bike. Vos outsprinted Kopecky at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad a few weeks ago – a race in which SD Worx’s sprinter, Lorena Wiebes, was unable to follow attacks on the steep climbs. This means that should Dwars door Vlaanderen be raced in a similarly aggressive fashion as Omloop, fast finishers like Wiebes and Balsamo could be put under pressure, while Vos has proven she is able to keep up on short climbs and still pack a punch at the line. The 36-year-old’s experience in the peloton also gives her the upper hand – her tactics are exemplary and if there is one rider who knows how to cope under the pressure of SD Worx, it’s Vos. Fem van Empel, also of Visma-Lease a Bike, is due to make her season debut at Dwars door Vlaanderen too and if she’s in good form, Vos will also be able to rely on Van Empel to help her put up a challenge to SD Worx.
While Lidl-Trek have been doing a formidable job in putting up a strong fight against the dominance of SD Worx which has plagued the women’s WorldTour in recent years, Vos coming back to the peloton will add another dynamic into the mix and is another rider for Kopecky’s team to look out for. The more riders who are able to challenge Vollering and Kopecky, the better the racing is going to be and we can expect fireworks at Dwars door Vlaanderen – especially if SD Worx struggle to manage the egos of superstars in their ranks.
This might only be the warm-up race before the Tour of Flanders, but the return of riders like Vos and Vollering to the peloton make Dwars door Vlaanderen incredibly crucial to understanding who will be in the mix at the De Ronde a few days later.
Cover image: Getty/Alex Broadway
]]>The Tour of Flanders began in 1913, marking this year as the race's 108th edition as there was no race from 1915 to 1918. A race defined by its tortuous twists, turns and narrow cobbled climbs, the Tour of Flanders, or Ronde van Vlaanderen, is arguably the finest of the Classics. The route may change slightly each year, but the hellingen that pack the region and define the race are a given, guaranteed to produce worthy winners of a true Monument. In the Ronde, only the strong survive.
Founded by a young sports journalist named Karel Van Wijnendaele and founding member of the newspaper Sportwereld, Leon den Haute, they wanted to create something which was more than just a bike race.
While there are four other Monument races – Il Lombardia, Paris-Roubaix, Liège-Bastogne-Liège, and Milan-Sanremo – which hold such prestige and history in the WorldTour calendar, there is no other race which defines a nation quite like the Tour of Flanders. Unsurprisingly, the most victories come from Belgian riders, with a total of 69 wins out of the 107 editions. The winner of the inaugural edition was Belgian rider Paul Denman who rode for Automoto-Continental. Many years later, 104 to be exact, Philippe Gilbert became the most recent home winner of De Ronde, riding solo to the finish resplendent in the Belgian national champion's jersey.
In its long history, only a handful of riders have taken the title on multiple occasions. Riders including Achiel Buysse, Fiorenzo Magni, Eric Leman, Johan Museeuw, Tom Boonen and Fabian Cancellara have crossed the finish line first on three occasions. King of the cobbles, Boonen and Cancellara are the only riders to have achieved the cobbled Classics double (Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix), twice, making them legendary in both these races.
Last year’s winner Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) will not be back to defend his title, leaving the top step of the podium clear for another winner. However, four previous winners of the race will be back this year and there is one two-time winner of this Monument who will be looking to secure a third title, and that is Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck). He looked unstoppable at E3 Saxo Classic, but was then beaten by Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) in Gent-Wevelgem a few days later. He’ll also have to face Alberto Bettiol (EF Education-EasyPost) and Kasper Asgreen (Soudal–Quick-Step), as well as other potential contenders like Matej Mohorič (Bahrain-Victorious), Jasper Stuyven (Lidl-Trek), and Stefan Küng (Groupama-FDJ).
The Tour of Flanders returns to Antwerp after the course last year began in Bruges, but has seen some significant changes due to concerns over safety. So, this year’s race features more major roads and a different approach to the Koppenberg climb, 45km from the finish. Nevertheless, the race still comprises 270.8km of racing and 17, mostly cobbled, climbs.
Starting in Antwerp, the first half of the race is fairly undulating but it isn’t until they approach the midway point of the race that it starts to heat up. After 136km of racing, they will approach the iconic Oude Kwaremont for the first time. Standing at 2.2km in length, the Oude Kwaremont is the longest climb in Flanders, and while its gradient is easier on the legs compared to other climbs, there is an 11.6% punch in the middle. After the halfway mark, the route intensifies and every 10km the peloton will face another cobbled challenge, offering little chance in between to recover. The Kapelleberg, Wolvenberg, Molenberg, and Valkenberg all come in quick succession and are a chance to thin the main peloton.
With 55km remaining, the riders will take on the iconic duo – Oude Kwaremont and Paterberg – for the first time. The two climbs feature again when the riders have just 20km remaining, so this is where we expect to see some decisive moments be made. Unlike the Oude Kwaremont, the Paterberg is a short but steep climb, with an eye-watering average gradient of 12.9%.
The Tour of Flanders this year finishes with its usual flat run-in to Oudenaarde. If no rider has managed to break away from the main peloton, here is where we see the most dramatic racing as the riders all battle it out to the line for victory.
The Tour of Flanders held its first women's edition in 2004. The route was just 94km long – making it the shortest route in the race's history. It was only in 2016 that the women's race was awarded UCI WorldTour status and has since become one of the most anticipated races in the women's calendar. Its legendary status in Belgium and notoriously tricky parcours make it a spectacle year after year.
The women's race is held on the same day as the men's and finishes one hour after the men’s on the run-in to Oudenaarde. The route takes in much of the men's route, but has a different starting point.
Last year, Belgian rider Lotte Kopecky won for a second year running after a solo attack 20km from the finish, beating her teammate Demi Vollering by 36 seconds. This win saw Kopecky join Mirjam Melchers-van Poppel, Judith Arndt, and Annemiek van Vleuten, who have all won the race twice during their professional careers. No rider is yet to win the race for a third time, however, Kopecky will be lining up for De Ronde once again and could look to make history by becoming not only the lone female rider to have won this Monument three times, but three years consecutively.
Unlike the men’s route, the women’s race will start and end in Oudenaarde and is 100km shorter at 163km. The course still packs a punch however, with 12 climbs and seven cobbled sections included in the race’s parcours.
The first half of the race is fairly undulating and they reach their first cobbled section pretty quickly at 9.2km, before the Lippenhovestraat and Paddestraat 40km later. The women’s peloton reach their first climb, the Wolvenberg, at 72km and then the second half of the race is littered with the punchy climbs that make this race so special. Coming thick and fast, they’ll have to conquer the Molenberg, Marlboroughstraat, Valkenberg, Kapelleberg, Koppenberg, Steenbeekdries, Taaienberg, and Oude Kruisberg, all within 80km of racing.
Then, with less than 20km left to go, the women will take on the race's iconic duo, Oude Kwaremont and Paterberg. After they are up and over the Paterberg, the remaining 13km is a flat finish back into Oudenaarde.
]]>Whether it was his three solo wins in the Pyrenees or his sprint victory in Barcelona – a triumph that elicited a deafening roar of euphoria from the roadside spectators akin to a football crowd – Pogačar was completely irrepressible, unmatchable, and, quite frankly, extraordinarily brilliant. Ahead of his attempt to win the Giro d’Italia and Tour de France in the same year, he confirmed that, “I am in the best shape I have ever been in. I would say I feel the most comfortable I ever have done on the bike.”
We are witnessing, in this author’s view at least, the 21st century Eddy Merckx. This is what it must have been like to witness The Cannibal - a bike rider turning up to races, instilling fear in his rivals before the race ribbon has even been cut, and then annihilating the opposition when and how he wants. We are lucky, so incredibly fortunate, to be graced by his talent, to have the opportunity to watch an immensely likeable artist, using the bike as his utensil, repeatedly creating modern works of art on the canvases of mountain passes and city centre streets.
With his white tips in his hair – a touch of glamour to add to his stardust – he looked a few centimetres taller last week, and spoke the grandest of words: “Now I have arrived at this point where I really strive to be the best ever,” he said. When a young fan shouted through the podium fencing after stage five, “Pogačar, win the Tour”, he smiled, as he always does, and replied: “Yes, of course.” It drew a rousing cheer. We are in the midst of a sporting icon, a legendary figure, and he pedalled, danced and walked around northern Spain with an aura of invincibility. This is his sport, just like it was Merckx’s, and he has near-complete control over it.
Was – is – his dominance, however, also the enemy of entertainment? A masterclass is breathtaking and enjoyable every once in a while, but repeated demonstrations of superiority are not. Pogačar winning has become such a foregone conclusion, that unless you’re at the roadside watching the superstar ride past you, it’s no longer fun. You can admire, marvel and laud his talent, but the spectacle has been stripped of its intrigue and suspense, and replaced by predictability and the formulaic. Indeed, riders present at the Volta admitted that whenever the UAE Team Emirates man is racing, the real race is for second and the minor places. They no longer harbour even the smallest ambitions of winning.
Cycling is a sport that has long since courted, and been obsessed by, Formula One: its cutting edge technology, the way it transformed itself from a niche sport to a worldwide entertainment monolith, and in recent years its Netflix successes. Cycling has and continues to copy its four-wheel rival.
In a way it never really desired, cycling has now drawn parity with F1. Not financially, and certainly not with the number of eyes on it, but in terms of performances, because now the same set of athletes – Pogačar, his only true adversary Jonas Vingegaard, Mathieu van der Poel, Lotte Kopecky, Demi Vollering and Remco Evenepoel – are winning almost all of the big races. When Max Verstappen doesn’t win an F1 race – like this past weekend – it’s presented as breaking news, as a shocking development. For cycling’s parallel, just look at Gent-Wevelgem: Mads Pedersen’s victory over Van der Poel was projected as the latter losing, rather than the former winning.
There is no doubt that we are living in a golden era of cycling: the Pogačar-Vingegaard rivalry is already a mythical duel; one-day races are exploding 100km from the finish; and there are a handful of figures who already populate most observers’ greatest ever lists.
But contrary to popular belief, I’d argue that these are not the best days for cycle racing. Just like in every other sport, there has and always will be periods of dominators, eras defined by one athlete, and sport’s cyclical nature means that current stars will fade and new ones will emerge. But right now, Pogačar and his aforementioned colleagues are far too good for the rest of the peloton, and competition is being stymied and neutralised.
When bike riders start admitting that they can’t even compete with the best, what’s the point in even watching the racing? We’re being treated to a Formula One-like parade of one man’s excellence, a procession of class that is losing its splendour.
People, including riders, point out that “at least there’s two of them”, in reference to Vingegaard, and say that this year’s Tour, also with Evenepoel and Primož Roglič, will be the scene of another memorable battle. True, absolutely true - it’s a salivating four-way match-up. But is being excited by only one stage race a year really what we want from our sport? I want to be entertained by every race, not just by the Tour. Pogačar’s performances in Catalunya, ditto Vingegaard’s at Tirreno-Adriatico, were monumental; they were historic - true greats at their finest. But this complete domination really is the enemy of entertainment. Cycling has got what it craved: it’s finally Formula One-lite.
]]>SD Worx took the victory, Wiebes defending Marlen Reusser’s title from 12 months ago, but a photo finish seemed like an apt way to end the race, as right now there is barely anything to choose between them and Lidl-Trek. The gulf between the two teams has closed dramatically this season, and Lidl-Trek are only trailing SD Worx by two wins to three in the six WorldTour Classics raced so far this spring (Visma-Lease a Bike’s Marianne Vos claiming the only one so far not won by those two teams, at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad). Whereas SD Worx were untouchable last year, Lidl-Trek have now proven themselves consistently able to match them in the majority of Classics.
In particular, Balsamo and Wiebes are looking intriguingly evenly-matched in sprint finishes. Balsamo proved she had the beating of Wiebes teammate Lotte Kopecky when she stormed past her in the final metres of Trofeo Alfredo Binda last weekend, and on Thursday claimed the scalp of Charlotte Kool (Team DSM-Firmenich PostNL) to win Brugge-De Panne. Wiebes might have proven to be too fast for her earlier in the year at the uphill sprint Ronde van Drenthe, where Balsamo was a distant second, but Gent-Wevelgem’s sprint was much closer, with barely anything separating the two.
Balsamo’s form is significantly up from last year, and she’s currently enjoying her best run since her hot streak during the sprint of 2022. In fact, her results this spring have almost mirrored that year, when she pulled-off a hat-trick of successive wins at Trofeo Alfredo Binda, Classic Brugge-De Panne and Gent-Wevelgem; a feat that Wiebes denied her from repeating this year by the barest of margins. With Balsamo in this kind of form, Lidl-Trek have a dangerous card they were hardly able to play last year due to her injury issues and lack of form, and during Gent-Wevelgem they were invested in playing it, taking it upon themselves to chase the attacks when they went on the climbs.
Lidl-Trek might have got the sprint they were hoping for, but SD Worx still took the win with Wiebes. This is a race that suits her well, given how frequently it ends in a bunch sprint, yet up until now she had never before triumphed here, failing to finish both of the last two editions and being egged out by Kirsten Wild in a sprint on debut in 2019. This was a vintage performance from the Dutchwoman from start to finish, too, and she demonstrated so much more than just her quick finishing sprint. She was right towards the front when all the key selections were made, first as one of the select six riders able to stay with Lotte Kopecky when she accelerated first time up the Kemmelberg, then, even more impressively, one of only two along with Pfeiffer Georgi (Team DSM-Firmenich PostNL) when Kopecky did the same the next time up. And despite using up all that energy, she still had enough left in the tank to win the final sprint when the race came back together.
Though only just. The fact Wiebes’ winning margin was so narrow could be of some significance in the future, as SD Worx can now longer afford to be quite so confident that she can always be relied upon to win in the event of a sprint. In recent years Wiebes has been the team’s insurance policy, fulfilling a similar role to that Jolien d’Hoore used to by holding back while her teammates attack, and offering a peerless sprint finish should they fail to get away successfully. Today, they were so sure that she would win in a sprint that despite finding themselves in the powerful position of having three riders (Wiebes, Kopecky and Marlen Reusser) in an elite group of eight that formed in the aftermath of the final Kemmelberg ascent, they opted against pushing on, worried of going too deep and not having enough left in the tank at the finish to defeat their fellow escapees: Georgi, Borghini, Shirin van Anrooij, Puck Pieterse (Fenix-Deceuninck) and Karlijn Swinkels (UAE Team ADQ).
The tactic ultimately paid off, with Wiebes taking the win, but the narrowness of the margin may give SD Worx pause for thought should such a circumstance arise in future races. As Wiebes’ climbing legs have improved, it seems some edge has been taken off her sprint. Last year Charlotte Kool (Team DSM-Firmenich PostNL) emerged as a rider capable of challenging, and sometimes beating her, in a bunch sprint, and now Balsamo seems able to push her close too. Consequently, we may see them adopt a more proactive approach in the future – not just lighting races up early on, as they did today with Kopecky’s frequent attacks on the climbs, but continuing to ride aggressively all the way to the finish.
They might have lost the battle today, but Lidl-Trek can take comfort that the war between themselves and SD Worx this spring remains a close-fought contest. While it’s true that this particular run of races suit Balsamo particularly well, and that Elisa Longo Borghini and Shirin van Anrooij will likely have to step up if they’re to succeed at the hillier, more selective terrain of the Tour of Flanders next weekend, they’re undoubtedly in a much better position that this time last year. To go from the huge 2:42 that Marlen Reusser won Gent-Wevelgem with last year to mere fractions of a tyre-length is some reduction, and bodes well for more competitive racing over the rest of the spring.
]]>But just as it seemed as though the upcoming cobbled Monuments these races have been building towards, a third team have thrown their hat into the ring: Lidl-Trek.
At Gent-Wevelgem, the team not only broke the duopoly by becoming the first different team to win a Classic this spring, they did so with the kind of collective strength that suggests they can go toe to toe with both Alpecin and Visma, will be a force to reckoned with. One factor for Lidl-Trek to overcome was the growingly invincible aura Mathieu van der Poel carries with him. Since winning all of Milan-Sanremo, Paris-Roubaix and the World Championships last year, a gulf has opened up between himself and every other riders in the Classics, with even his great rival Wout van Aert unable to compete with him. And that gulf was painfully apparent to all his would-be rivals at E3 Saxo Bank Classic on Friday, when even 44km proved not to be too far out as he attacked solo to win.
So when he arrived at the finishing straight in Wevelgem with Lidl-Trek’s Mads Pedersen, you still felt, even though Pedersen is the more proven sprinter with bunch sprint wins to his name at the highest level, that somehow Van der Poel would still be too strong. But this time, that did not prove to be the case. The Dane remained calm, backed himself in the sprint, and was unable to be passed when he opened up his sprint, claiming his second career Gent-Wevelgem title.
We perhaps shouldn't have doubted Pedersen given how strong he’d looked earlier in the race. In fact, he even looked stronger than Van der Poel on some of the race’s defining climbs. Although it was, inevitably, the world champion who forced the initial selections when he accelerated on the first ascent of the Kemmelberg and the second of the three plugstreet cobbled sections, on the next loop of Monteberg and Kemmelberg, Pedersen was the aggressor. Then during the all-important final time up the Kemmelberg, it was Pedersen again who led Van de Poel, and, for once, Van der Poel was grimacing. Our eyes weren't deceiving us: Van der Poel was struggling. And that struggle was apparent come the finishing straight, when he found himself unable to pass Pedersen, and sat up resigned.
As brilliant as Pedersen’s performance was, this victory was a collective triumph of his whole Lidl-Trek team. It was clear from earlier in the day, when they matched both Visma-Lease a Bike and Alpecin-Deceuninck for numbers in the lead group after crosswinds ripped apart the race on the exposed De Moeren section, that they were on a good day. But even they can't have anticipated how well they would go after the race came back together upon reaching the first climbs. When Van der Poel attacked on the Kemmelberg, he took just six riders with him, half of which were Lidl-Trek riders: Pedersen, Jasper Stuyven and Jonathan Milan. Eager to capitalise on this numerical advantage, Milan attacked shortly after the summit, forcing Van der Poel to chase, with the other riders in the group (Rasmus Tiller, Laurence Pithie and Tim van Dijke) uneager to aid a rider so clearly stronger than them.
Yet Van der Poel still appeared to bending the race to his will. He reduced the group to just himself, Pedersen, Stuyven and Pithie after attacking on the second plugstreet, then to just the three when Stuyven had the misfortune of puncturing. Then, after a long chase, he brought back Milan 65km from the finish, just prior to the final cluster of climbs. Despite the significant setback of losing Stuyven, Lidl-Trek continued to try and work him over, with Milan and Pedersen both accelerating, but once Milan was dropped the second time up the Kemmelberg, their numerical advantage was gone.
It might have seemed that Lidl-Trek had lost their advantage, but in truth the damage had already been done. They may not have managed to drop Van der Poel, but they did, crucially, succeed in tiring him out. The chase to bring back Milan had evidently taken a lot out of him, while Pedersen had the luxury of resting on his wheel. Pedersen was happy to share the workload once Milan was brought back, and especially when just he and Van der Poel remained following the final ascent of the Kemmelberg, confident that he could better this worn-out version of Van der Poel.
By taking victory this way, Lidl-Trek succeeded where even Visma-Lease a Bike have failed so far this spring, in using their superior numbers to defeat Van der Poel. Even more impressively, they did so despite the ill-timed puncture to the in-form Jasper Stuyven, and despite also being up against Van der Poel’s teammate Jasper Philipsen, who waited menacingly in the bunch to give Alpecin-Deceuninck an extra strong card to play in the event of a bunch finish. Now, Lidl-Trek will turn their attention towards the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix, where they hope to achieve something they haven't done for over three years, and win a Monument. Based on today, the flying form of both Pedersen and Stuyven, and the emergence of Milan as a cobbled Classics contender, what had seemed an outside bet at most now feels very plausible.
]]>There were moments in today's race when it looked like things just might have changed this Classics season. In the opening 100 kilometres, Lidl-Trek had numbers at the front of the race and they sent the likes of Jasper Stuyven, Alex Kirsch and Mads Pedersen off the front of the group of favourites, forcing others to do the work to bring things back together. Movistar too rode an impressive race with Rémi Cavagna and Lorenzo Milesi in the breakaway of the day and Spanish national champion Oier Lazkano attacking like a true Flandrian from the chase behind. Even Julian Alaphilippe looked like he could be back at one point for Soudal–Quick-Step, showing glimpses of his former self when he attacked with 70 kilometres of the race remaining. As these moves came thick and fast from other teams, it almost seemed as if the peloton had stepped up a level this season, and there would be no dominance from the usual suspects. At times, Van der Poel looked worryingly outnumbered – if it was any other rider, they would have been in trouble. But, as we all know, Van der Poel is not like any other rider.
In fact, you might have thought that the world champion could be intimidated by the team support that his rival, Wout van Aert, had ahead of today’s race. The Dutch squad came with a line-up of superstars, many of whom could be in with their own chance of taking victory in a race like E3 on their day. While the team was centered around Van der Poel’s long-time rival, Wout van Aert, riders like Matteo Jorgenson, Tiesj Benoot, Jan Tratnik and Dylan van Baarle have also contested for victories in Belgian one-day races in the past. None of this seemed to bother Van der Poel, though, who, rather than worrying about the number of men in yellow he had around him, constantly threw his own attacks into the race, unafraid of the fact he had fewer teammates, unconcerned about the risks he was taking using so much energy early on. This tenacious, raw and daring way of racing is why he has the rainbow stripes on his back.
In the end, the strength that Visma-Lease a Bike appeared to have on the start line at E3 Saxo Classic eventually amounted to very little. It’s true that there was bad luck for the favourite team with crashes for Van Aert, Benoot and Per Strand Hagenes, as well an untimely mechanical for Van Baarle. Everyone in the race will have their excuses for allowing one rider to win by a minute and a half today, but the results sheet speaks for itself, and it shows Van der Poel as the strongest rider, by a big margin.
What does this all mean for the Tour of Flanders coming up in just one week time? Will the Dutch powerhouse be able to do the same thing all over again? Was there anything anyone else could have done at E3 to stop him?
Visma-Lease a Bike will say yes. Van Aert was close to Van der Poel when he made his move on the Taaienberg, and the Belgian is still yet to be at his best form having only recently returned from a training camp at altitude. If he hadn’t crashed at the most untimely moment on the Paterberg, perhaps Van Aert could have held on to the wheel of Van der Poel and it would have come down to a sprint between them at the finish line. The sheer fact that the Visma-Lease a Bike rider was able to get back on his bike after his crash, regain contact with the group in front and then attack to bring the gap to Van der Poel down to ten seconds at one stage should give him confidence in his ability. In nine days, when he stands on the start line in Antwerp ahead of one of his biggest goals of the season, Van Aert’s form could have stepped up another level, and it could be him who will be putting the pressure on over the hellingen of Flanders.
Other teams such as Lidl-Trek, UAE Team Emirates and Movistar also now have an advantage ahead of the Tour of Flanders because they know how good Van der Poel is. E3 Saxo Classic is a race where the favourites for De Ronde show their hand, and the world champion can no longer keep under wraps how strong he is on the cobbles. Going into the Tour of Flanders, all eyes will be on Van der Poel, and each team will be discussing how to beat him. If riders like Jorgenson, Stuyven and Lazkano can better anticipate these long range moves from Van der Poel – perhaps by getting themselves in the early break of the day, there won’t be as much pressure to try and follow the world champion when he inevitably launches his unstoppable attacks on the steepest climbs in the race.
What Van der Poel did in today's wet and windy warm-up race for the Tour of Flanders was breathtakingly impressive. The impact of Van Aert’s crash can’t be fully measured, but anyone watching the form and skill of the world champion would argue that he looked to be the strongest in the race – while Van Aert rocked and rolled over his bike on the climbs, Van der Poel was stoic and smooth, his mouth barely even turning into a grimace. But, it should be noted that E3 is not the Tour of Flanders, and we still have over a week to go until that race rolls around. Armed with knowledge of each other’s form and the understanding that nothing is a given in professional cycling, Van der Poel’s third De Ronde victory is far from a done deal. There’s still everything to play for in Belgium.
]]>But that was last year, and the peloton has changed again since then. Each season, there seems to be one dominant team or rider, and it’s fair to say that Visma-Lease a Bike took that title in 2024. Gent-Wevelgem was just one race out of many that the Dutch team in yellow monopolised and there was a time when another Visma victory led to eye-rolling – it was a predictable outcome. After a winter goes by and the WorldTour peloton has been in hibernation for a few months, when March rolls around, the Classics fire up and everything seems to change all over again. Looking at the start list for this year’s edition of Gent-Wevelgem, it’s hard to even imagine that we’ll have a predictable ending to the race in 2024.
It’s true that the one rider who stands out – and he’ll also stand out on the start line in his bright white world champion bib shorts – is Mathieu van der Poel. There’s no denying that, on paper, the Dutchman is one of the strongest in the Gent-Wevelgem field this season, but this doesn’t automatically mean that he’ll be able to win the race. Both Van der Poel’s aid and his obstacle on the way to his first Gent-Wevelgem victory will be his teammate and Milan-Sanremo winner, Jasper Philipsen. The Belgian showed on the Poggio last weekend that he’s in good form, surviving the climb to outsprint the rest of the reduced bunch at the finish line in Sanremo.
Philipsen was only able to do that, however, because of the unwavering support from Van der Poel in the closing kilometres of the race. The world champion chose not to work with Tadej Pogačar in order to allow Philipsen to remain in contact with the group on the Poggio and then chased down every move so that his teammate could have a chance to win. Will Van der Poel be prepared to do the same in Gent-Wevelgem? The Dutchman will be keen to open his 2024 win tally and knows he can make a difference on the final climbs in the race – just as Laporte and Van Aert did last year. Alpecin-Deceuninck are going to have a difficult choice to make regarding their approach to the race: do they give Van der Poel free rein, or try to keep things together for another Philipsen powerhouse sprint?
Of course, taking Philipsen to sprint for the line comes with risks in itself. While he’s proven he’s one of the fastest men in the peloton, Philipsen has got things wrong in finishes on occasion this season, namely losing out to Tim Merlier of Soudal–Quick-Step at the end of Nokere Koerse a few weeks ago. Does Alpecin really trust Philipsen to finish it off, especially with the fatigue in his legs after a hectic and hilly closing 50 kilometres of the race?
It’s not just Merlier who Alpecin-Deceuninck will need to watch out for if Gent-Wevelgem culminates in a sprint to the line, either. Lidl-Trek will be bringing Mads Pedersen to the race, a rider who thrives after a tough and attritional finale. Pedersen and his teammate Jasper Stuyven both found their way into the front group of Milan-Sanremo last weekend, and they will be looking to do the same in the Flanders fields. Jayco-Alula also bring a formidably fast duo of Dylan Groenewegen and Micheal Matthews, both of whom have shown their form so far this year, with Matthews losing out on Sanremo victory by just half a wheel to Philipsen a week ago. Then, there are the likes of Arnaud De Lie (Lotto-Dstny), Jordi Meeus and Danny van Poppel (Bora-Hansgrohe), Biniam Girmay (Intermarché-Wanty) John Degenkolb (Team dsm-firmenich PostNL), Pascal Ackermann (Israel-Premier Tech) and Alexander Kristoff (Uno-X Mobility), who are all fast sprinters that could be in with a shot if they make it to the finish in Wevelgem in the front group.
While Visma-Lease a Bike might struggle to maintain the dominance they showed in this race last year, they certainly shouldn’t be counted out for a win in Gent-Wevelgem either, though they may have to race in a different way. The team’s young sprinter, Olav Kooij, has impressed so far this year, outsprinting Merlier and Pedersen to take stage wins in both the UAE Tour and Paris-Nice. Whether the Dutch rider will be able to make it over those hilly sections in the closing stages of Gent-Wevelgem remains to be seen, but Visma-Lease a Bike still has plenty of options if not. Christophe Laporte returns to the race as defending champion, while Tiesj Benoot is another card that Visma could play.
It seems that the conflict most teams are going to have to grapple with is whether to try and keep things together for a bunch kick, or take some risks and go for attacks on the closing climbs with the aim of getting away solo or with a small group at the finish. With the complications and intricacies of the Gent-Wevelgem parcours, and the unique balancing act that teams such as Alpecin-Deceuninck will have to manage, it’s hard to imagine that the race will end up in two teammates hand holding this year.
]]>However, the major one-day races so far haven't all been smooth sailing for SD Worx. Marianne Vos (Visma-Lease a Bike) narrowly edged out Kopecky at the finish line of Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, while Elisa Balsamo upheld Lidl-Trek's reign at Trofeo Alfredo Binda, relegating Kopecky to second place. This demonstrates that other teams are beginning to decipher the tactics needed to pierce SD Worx's armour, snatching first-place podiums away from them.
As the Women's WorldTour returns to Belgium ahead of one of the biggest Classics races, the Tour of Flanders, riders will aim to make a statement at Classic Brugge-De Panne (won by Elisa Balsamo) and Gent-Wevelgem this week before heading to De Ronde. SD Worx, too, will aim to assert their supremacy once again, and are heading into their next race with a lineup of riders poised for glory at Gent-Wevelgem on Sunday March 24.
Gent-Wevelgem is an unpredictable race. Its terrain favours those with a fast finish due to the flat stretch towards the line, however, past editions have witnessed opportunistic attackers capitalising on the punchy cobbled climbs in the latter half of the 171.2km-long race, seizing victory with a solo finish. Marlen Reusser (SD Worx) executed this strategy last year, breaking away with 40km remaining and finishing 2-43 ahead of second-placed Megan Jastrab (Team dsm-fermenich PostNL). Prior to Reusser's victory, only Chantal Blaak (now van den Broek-Blaak) in 2016 and Lizzie Armitstead (now Deignan) in the inaugural 2012 edition secured solo wins, with all other editions culminating in sprint finishes.
With this race being known as a “sprinter’s Classics” it seems only likely that SD Worx will opt for the team to ride in support of Lorena Wiebes, undoubtedly the fastest rider in the women’s peloton. Last year, Wiebes crashed 7km from the finish and has never had much success in this race, so she’ll be keen to finally turn her fate around on the roads in Belgium, especially as she’ll be up against other sprinters such as Charlotte Kool (Team dsm-fermenich PostNL), Elisa Balsamo (Lidl-Trek), and Chiara Consonni (UAE Team ADQ). However, Wiebes was involved in a crash at Nokere Koerse last week and the team announced that she would not be racing in Classic Brugge-De Panne due to injuries she sustained from the incident.
Lorena Wiebes won Miron Ronde van Drenthe for the fourth time this year (Image by Getty Images)
Despite the likelihood of SD Worx supporting Wiebes for a sprint finish, her recent crash at Nokere Koerse and subsequent withdrawal from Classic Brugge-De Panne could significantly impact the team's strategy for Gent-Wevelgem. This turn of events leaves room for speculation regarding who will take on the leadership role for SD Worx in the upcoming race. Without their star sprinter at full strength, the team may need to adapt their tactics and consider alternative riders capable of capitalising on the challenging terrain or seizing opportunities for breakaways, similar to Marlen Reusser's successful solo effort in the previous edition, or a sprint from a select group of riders.
Lotte Kopecky has proven she can win from a reduced bunch sprint and therefore, would most likely be the rider SD Worx would choose to go for the victory if Wiebes isn’t up for the challenge. The Belgian rider is strong uphill and might be able to shake some of the riders off on the final climbs, leaving her sprinting against a select few riders in the hopes of crossing the finish line first. Alternatively, SD Worx may opt for a different tactic, perhaps launching attacks on the race's earlier climbs to gain an advantage, especially with Balsamo, who has already outpaced Kopecky in a sprint this season, monitoring her moves.
Despite Gent-Wevelgem being on home turf for the Belgian rider, Lotte Kopecky has yet to claim victory in this race. She may have had eight appearances at the start line and has managed to crack the top-10 four times, but the elusive victory has remained out of reach. While Gent-Wevelgem may not carry the same prestige as other Classics races, a win would undoubtedly be a significant achievement for Kopecky. After all, a victory is a victory, regardless of the race's stature. And with Wiebes potentially also not up to full strength, could this make Kopecky more keen to take the win?
But that is not the only option for SD Worx. Like last year’s unscripted Gent-Wevelgem win with Reusser, SD Worx could opt for European Champion Mischa Bredewold to make a long-range attack. The European champion has made a name for herself with long, daring attacks and could look to imitate Reusser’s winning blueprint from last year’s race. Her best result this year has been second place at Omloop van het Hageland behind Kristen Faulkner, who won with an immense 50km solo breakaway.
Mischa Bredewold during this year's Strade Bianche (Image by Getty Images)
Whoever SD Worx selects to lead, they'll receive support from Barbara Guarischi, Elena Cecchini, and Femke Gerritse. Yet, they're aware that all eyes are on them, with the rest of the peloton ready to counter any move they make. While SD Worx will go into this race as a clear favourite with Wiebes and Kopecky on their start list, it’s not a foregone conclusion that they will win, especially given the race’s unpredictable nature.
They do boast strength in depth and have multiple options available to them as the race situation changes, but this could also be their downfall, as the saying goes, “too many cooks can spoil the broth”. We’ve seen tensions before with SD Worx, most notably, at last year’s Strade Bianche when Kopecky and Demi Vollering fought for victory. It was evident that while cycling is a team sport, some riders in SD Worx are willing to pit themselves against their own teammates for their own glory.
This internal competition within SD Worx could add an extra layer of complexity to their strategy at Gent-Wevelgem. While having multiple strong riders provides flexibility, it also raises questions about team cohesion and willingness to sacrifice personal ambitions for the greater good of the team. As they navigate the challenges of the race, SD Worx will need to ensure clear communication and decision making to maximise their chances of success at Gent-Wevelgem. Otherwise, their formidable strength in depth could indeed become a liability, rather than an asset in their pursuit of victory.
]]>While it’s not considered a major Classic, E3 holds a particular significance this season as the first time that Wout van Aert and Mathieu van der Poel will go head-to-head on their favoured terrain. The rivalry between the Visma-Lease a Bike rider and the Alpecin-Deceuninck rider dates back years, from the cyclo-cross field, to stages of Grand Tours, to chasing Monument wins, Van der Poel and Van Aert have been through it all, and they’re about to embark on another season of searching for every way possible to get the better of one another.
Things are especially interesting this year when considering the varying preparations that each rider has made for the upcoming Classics block. Van der Poel made his season debut at Milan-Sanremo last week, where he was integral to the victory of his teammate Jasper Philipsen. The Dutch rider’s performance on the Poggio climb as he closed the gap to a flying Tadej Pogačar and then subsequently chased down nearly every move in the approach to the finish in Sanremo was proof of Van der Poel’s form and should have his rivals feeling nervous ahead of the upcoming one-day races.Wout van Aert during Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne 2024 (Image: Getty)
Wout van Aert, on the other hand, hasn’t raced for almost one month, instead spending time at altitude in Tenerife, planning specifically to target the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix – two races in which victories have eluded him, despite the Belgian coming close to victory on plenty of occasions. Earlier in the season, Van Aert’s third place in Omloop het Nieuwsblad and win in Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne the following day have been proof enough that the Visma-Lease a Bike rider is serious about the Classics this year. Since E3 has one of the toughest finales of them all, it will be a true test as to whether his altitude camp has paid off.
Of course, neither of these riders will be able to win a race like the E3 Saxo Classic alone, and it’s important to look at the teams they will have supporting them when it comes to predicting who will come out on top. On paper, Visma-Lease a Bike have a breathtakingly strong Classics squad this season: joining the Dutch team has been transformative for the American rider, Matteo Jorgenson, who recently won Paris-Nice. Jorgenson will be an asset to Van Aert on Friday, as will riders like former Paris-Roubaix winner, Dylan van Baarle, last year’s Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne winner Tiesj Benoot, and Omloop het Nieuwsblad winner Jan Tratnik.
Alpecin-Deceuninck, on the other hand, don’t have as many prolific winners in their ranks and a notable omission from the squad is Jasper Philipsen, the team’s sprinter who likely will find the parcours of E3 too challenging. Despite not having the same headline names as Visma-Lease a Bike, though, Van der Poel will be supported by some loyal and experienced domestiques who have a crucial understanding of the roads of Flanders. Michael Gogl, Søren Kragh Andersen and Oscar Riesebeek will be important players in Van der Poel’s bid to win E3, and it may be that having a team completely dedicated to him will be an asset to the Dutch rider. They don’t have as many options as Visma-Lease a Bike, but Alpecin-Deceuninck’s strategy for this race will be clear from the get go.Mathieu van der Poel before Milan-Sanremo 2024 (Image: Zac Williams/SWpix)
It should also be considered that there are plenty of other riders in the peloton who will fancy their chances at the E3 Saxo Classic. While all talk is about the clash of two superstars, teams like Soudal–Quick-Step will also want to make themselves seen in this race with riders like Kasper Asgreen, Julian Alaphilippe and Gianni Moscon. Likewise, the team of Lidl-Trek have been a force to be reckoned with so far in 2024, and both Mads Pedersen and Jasper Stuyven showed impressive form in Milan-Sanremo last week. Bahrain-Victorious shouldn’t be counted out either, with Fred Wright and Matej Mohorič making a formidable pairing, and there’s also UAE Team Emirates to keep an eye on with the likes of Tim Wellens and Nils Politt. Riders such as Arnaud De Lie (Lotto-Dstny), Biniam Girmay (Intermarché-Wanty), Valentin Madouas (Groupama-FDJ) and Jhonatan Narváez (Ineos Grenadiers) are also going to put up a fight to the likes of Van Aert and Van der Poel.
Whatever happens on the famous climbs of Belgium in the E3 Saxo Classic tomorrow, by the end of the race, we’ll have a much clearer idea of which teams and riders are going to be able to challenge for victories in races like the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix in a few weeks’ time. Van der Poel versus Van Aert is just one piece of a complicated puzzle that makes up the E3 Saxo Classic – it’s time to strap in for a wild couple of weeks on the cobbles.
Cover image: Zac Williams/SWpix
]]>This forms part of a bigger challenge, which will result in him being the first person to ever achieve such a feat. France is aiming to go from the lowest point on each continent to the highest, all by human power. The challenge, titled The Ultimate Seven Project, will see him traverse 15,000 miles across 20 countries and achieve four world records. He completed the first leg from Africa’s Lac Assal to summiting Kilimanjaro last September, ticking off one continent in 28 days and knocking off 1,636 miles, leaving only 13,364 miles to conquer.
Yet, despite the next expedition being a monumental challenge that’s looming large in the near future, France says that getting on the bike when he lands in California will be “very relaxing” compared to all the planning he has had to do. “I’ll be quite glad for a bit of downtime,” he quips before quickly adding: “Physically hard, but mentally, hopefully quite relaxing.”
Others may find a spa day or a day in the garden reading a book relaxing, but France has always had a passion for the outdoors and a curiosity to explore the world, so challenging himself in some of the most extreme landscapes is where France feels most himself. “When I’m spending time away from these adventures, I feel like I am missing something. It’s like when you get an injury and you can’t do something, it’s agonising not being able to do that. That’s almost how I feel when I’ve had a long time away from a big adventure. I feel like I have an itch to scratch,” he says when I ask about his motive behind why he wants to complete these feats of endurance.
France, now 33 years old and a father to two children, recalls his first taste of adventure when he was 17 and went on a climbing weekend with his friends. He’d never climbed before, but it instantly felt natural to him, exciting too, he adds.
“I loved the adrenaline of it. Based on that one experience, I signed up for a three-year outdoor leadership degree course at the University of Lancashire, and suddenly, I’m in this world where I’m with some really experienced instructors, learning new skills, and they’re encouraging us to travel. I’m then working in America and Lebanon the year after, then Uganda the next year and it was that that just gave me this love for adventure,” he reflects passionately.
Since his first taste of adventure, France has travelled through deserts, jungles, mountains and war-torn countries, but has also been tested to his absolute limits, both physically and mentally, having faced spies, interrogators, minefields and arrests, as well as earthquakes, avalanches, and severe dehydration. But this is one of the biggest things France says he takes away from these adventures – learning to find the light in the darkest of places.
“You have to lean into this discomfort,” France says. “I always say that as humans we are born explorers. If we weren’t, we’d still be living in the jungle. We have a desire to learn more about the world around us, to explore the next corner, and it’s good to lean into that. For me, that is where we grow. That’s where the magic happens when you start getting out there and testing yourself.
“I also think resilience is a big part of these expeditions, finding strategies to continue through difficult situations which do, and will, arise. I have been through a hell of a lot of crazy situations over the years, but it is finding ways just to get through it. The problem might be grim and awful when you’re going through it, but it will blow over. Just keep moving, make decisions, trust your instincts, and just try to tap into that inner voice that allows you to carry on.”
He’ll certainly need to embrace everything this challenge throws at him, especially as he has over 3,500 miles on his bike, completely solo for long stretches of time until he reaches inhabited areas. “These challenges are certainly not just about my physical ability, it’s also 100 per cent mentally challenging,” he admits. “I often say that you could spend all this time and money travelling halfway around the world, but actually, you spend most of your time in your own head, and even though you are completely alone, you experience every emotion from total euphoria to total misery and everything in between.”
Staying positive is a huge factor that helps him throughout these challenges, but it is a work in progress, and every day relies on little mental tools he has learned from previous expeditions. Self-talk and visualisation are two tools France pulls upon in particular. “Oh, and podcasts,” he laughs. “I’d probably go stir-crazy without podcasts and music.”
France recalls an expedition in Siberia, where he was solo for 16 days, crossing the world’s biggest frozen lake, which is 400 miles long, all whilst carrying a 60kg sled, covering a marathon distance a day. Completely cut off from the outside world, all France had as a means of communication was a device that allowed him to send one or two messages a day.
“When things got really hard, and the terrain was atrocious, and I was struggling to even do one mile an hour, I would say to myself, ‘You are a sled hauling machine. That is your one job on this earth right now. Just hold the sled.’ I think that was my way of giving my absolute focus to the task because my easiest way out of that is to carry on – the alternative is much harder,” France says about learning to listen to his inner monologue of positive self-talk during challenging moments.
In his upcoming challenge, starting March 24, he’ll be using everything he has learned to overcome the mental challenges he might face, including avalanche risks, extremely strong winds, multi-day storms, extreme heat and bears. He confesses that these are slightly daunting thoughts, but an adventurer through and through, he adds: “I think a lot of the time fear comes from a lack of understanding.”
In order to be as prepared as he can for any situation which may arise, he learns to be aware of all the factors. So, for example, with the reality that he may come face-to-face with a bear, where he’ll be a “small snack to a big grizzly bear”, he’s arranged to meet a bear expert to learn how to overcome this hurdle if he was to face it.
Despite all the concerns he’s had to prepare for, France has wanted to do this trip for many years and at the end of this month, he’ll finally get to start this next expedition as he searches to complete his world-first journey across the seven continents. “I’ve never been to places like Northern Canada and Alaska, and I’ve wanted to visit for years, so just to have the opportunity to be out there in the pristine wilderness with glaciers, mountains and lakes on my bike is pretty unique, so that’s really exciting,” he says.
As Oli France embarks on his extraordinary odyssey, he reminds us that the true essence of life lies not in the safety of comfort zones but in the exhilarating unknown beyond. His journey is a testament to the indomitable human spirit, urging us to push past our perceived limits, embrace discomfort, and find strength in adversity.
]]>The result has alas given Philipsen plenty of leverage in what is for him a contract year, and there has been speculation that he may look to sign for another team when his current deal with Alpecin-Deceuninck runs out at the end of the year, rather than replicate what teammate Van der Poel confirmed this week, and sign a multi-year extension. As the Belgian continues to develop as a Classics rider, there’s an argument that the two riders might find themselves stepping on each other’s toes, and that they may find their goals incompatible as they start to target the same races. However, based on the way that Milan-Sanremo unfolded, perhaps having Van der Poel on the same team as himself is a help rather than a hindrance for Philipsen.
The finishing sprint in Milan-Sanremo 2024 (Image: Zac Williams/SWpix)
The Dutchman was instrumental in helping Philipsen win, sacrificing his own chances in the finale by sitting resolutely on Pogačar’s wheel rather than ride with him when the two went clear on the Poggio, then, after they were caught by the chase group featuring Philipsen, successfully chasing down every attack to ensure the race was decided by a sprint. “Without him, I probably would not have won,” said a grateful Philipsen at the finish.
It was a triumph of communication between the two teammates, an enviable display of being able to improvise and think of the spot and prioritise what’s best for the team rather than the individual. “On the descent of the Poggio, I begged Mathieu on the radio not to work with Pogačar because I had great legs,” explained Philipsen at the finish. Van der Poel corroborates, saying how “coming down from the Poggio I saw Jasper was there, and he told me he still had good legs, so I knew what to do.” “I could have sprinted maybe myself as well,” he continued, “but I think we are honest to each other, and if he says he has really good legs, I believe him.”
To keep such a clear head in as chaotic an atmosphere as the notoriously breathless final kilometres of Milan-Sanremo really is extraordinary, not to mention the selflessness of giving up his own personal ambition for victory. And the fact that Philipsen did indeed finish it off by winning the sprint proved that both were right to do so. Neither was this the first time Van der Poel has provided invaluable service in aid of Philipsen. Going into last year’s Tour de France, most expected the Dutchman to approach the race in the same way as he had the Giro d’Italia the previous year and the Tour de France the year before that, unleashing his aggressive instincts to attack at every opportunity and hunt stage wins. Instead, Van der Poel spent the first week of the race remaining quietly in the peloton, saving himself to lead-out Philipsen in the bunch sprints, and duly delivering him perfectly for the first three of his four stage wins. Philipsen might be the quickest sprinter in the world, but it’s doubtful he’d have attained quite such a haul of victories without his teammate so reliably putting it on a plate for him.
The reverse has been true, too, with Philipsen playing a key support role in Van der Poel’s Paris-Roubaix triumph last year. When the decisive selection of a dozen riders formed after the Arenberg Forest, Philipsen was there along with Van der Poel, making Alpecin-Deceuninck the only team with multiple representatives. And that proved to be of great value later when Van der Poel made his race-winning move on Carrefour de l'Arbre, as Philipsen was able to follow wheels and sap morale in the chase behind. He ultimately sprinted for second place to seal a one-two for the team, and announced himself as a major contender on the cobbles for the first time.
Philipsen and Van der Poel on the podium of Paris-Roubaix last year (Image: Alex Whitehead/SWpix)
That Paris-Roubaix ride, as well as last weekend’s Milan-Sanremo, looks set to form a benchmark for the upcoming cobbled Classics this spring, as Philipsen again joins forces with Van der Poel to re-enact their deadly double-act. They’re set to ride four more Classics this spring, each of them among the most prestigious on the calendar: Gent-Wevelgem this weekend, followed by the Tour of Flanders, then a defence of their Paris-Roubaix title, and finally a venture into the non-cobbled, hilly terrain in Amstel Gold Race.
Van der Poel has always flourished in these races, winning all of them apart from Gent-Wevelgem, but this will be the first campaign in which Philipsen lines up as a co-leader. His emergence will give the team a whole new dimension to approach these races, another rider who can also win all of them, and therefore a degree of tactical options and unpredictability that haven’t had before. This extra dimension could be essential as Alpecin-Deceuninck takes on the collective might of Visma-Lease a Bike. The Dutch team might have been notable by their absence at Milan-Sanremo, with a seemingly ill Christophe Laporte failing to finish, but reinforcements are on the way for the upcoming cobbled Classics in the form of Dylan van Baarle and, of course, Wout van Aert, along with Jan Tratnik and Matteo Jorgenson, both of whom starred at Omloop Het Nieuwsblad.
Tratnik’s success at that race, along with Van Aert’s the following day at Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne, sealed a perfect Opening Weekend for Visma-Lease a Bike, and once reinforced their status as the team to beat. Yet as both last week’s Milan-Sanremo and last year’s Paris-Roubaix demonstrated, the addition of Philipsen to Van der Poel has made Alpecin-Deceuninck a real force to be reckoned with, and a genuine threat to Visma-Lease a Bike’s supremacy in the Classics. With the likes of cobbled veterans Søren Kragh Andersen and Gianni Vermeersch also to be deployed as domestiques, there’s plenty of fuel in the engine room, too.
Visma-Lease a Bike may be determined to bring an end to their three-and-a-half-year monument drought at the Tour of Flanders and Paris-Roubaix in a few weeks, but overcoming this Van der Poel-Philipsen partnership is going to be some challenge. Some epic battles on the cobbles are on the horizon this spring; and this time not just between the familiar rivals Van Aert and Van der Poel, but their whole teams.
Cover image: Zac Williams/SWpix
]]>The simple truth is that Lidl-Trek were the best team in the race at Trofeo Binda, and they’re steadily putting themselves in contention to be classed as the best team in the women’s peloton altogether. It’s true that they have long had an affinity with the Italian one-day race, having now won the last four editions of Trofeo Binda, but today’s victory was especially significant. For all the talk of Kopecky being subbed into the race at the last minute for SD Worx and the discussion around the strength of the Dutch squad, Lidl-Trek proved themselves to be smarter, stronger and more motivated than ever.
During the race, flurries of attacks came from the likes of Niamh Fisher Black (SD Worx), Neve Bradbury (Canyon//SRAM) and Puck Pieterse (Fenix-Deceuninck), but there was barely a moment where the team in yellow, red and blue looked in danger of throwing away their race. Gaia Realini and Amanda Spratt were there for Lidl-Trek on the climbs, attentive to the moves of other climbers, but it was Shirin van Anrooij’s performance as a domestique for Balsamo that especially set Lidl-Trek apart from the rest.
The 22-year-old rider, a former winner of Trofeo Binda herself, gave an exhibition in how to ride for a teammate, selflessly pulling turns throughout the day and constantly remaining attentive to the presence of Balsamo in the bunch. Van Anrooij’s monstrous effort in the approach to the finish line ensured that Movistar’s Mareille Meijering was brought back into the jaws of a sprinting peloton, allowing Balsamo to have a shot at going for victory. It was an example of the camaraderie and teamwork that Lidl-Trek have managed to foster in their set-up – they backed Balsamo for a sprint win, and every single rider committed to the plan. There would be no talk of infighting or tension (despite Van Anrooij being acutely aware she has the capabilities to win Trofeo Binda herself on her day), and everything was put behind one leader.
It was a contrast to how other teams approached the race, with outfits such as SD Worx-Protime launching attacks with Marlen Reusser and Fisher-Black, and UAE Team ADQ riding aggressively on the front, but seemingly without a real plan of who they were working for. The aggression exhibited by other teams made the race entertaining to watch, but Lidl-Trek’s calm and collected ability to monitor moves and use up riders only when it was completely necessary was an example of the American squad’s tactical maturity.
Inspiration can also be taken from Balsamo’s own journey over the last two seasons in the lead up to this WorldTour win. The Italian rider suffered a serious crash at the RideLondon Classic last year and had to have surgery to correct fractures of the left scaphoid bone as well as fractures of both the left and right mandible (lower jaw). It took Balsamo some time to recover from the accident, and she only began to look like her former self on the bike in September last year when she took a stage victory at the Simac Ladies Tour. Since then, however, Balsamo has appeared stronger and stronger in each race she starts – pre-race talk is often centred solely around the likes of Kopecky or Wiebes ahead of many Women’s WorldTour events, but Balsamo has proven herself to be every bit the contender for victories in the biggest showdowns of the season, even if she’s sometimes classed as the underdog.
Above all, Lidl-Trek’s win today should be highlighted as an example of impressive perseverance. It would have been easy to become disheartened by the stranglehold that SD Worx-Protime have had over the peloton in the last couple of years, but the American squad’s plucky, brave and intuitive racing style has never faltered. While there have been races where some might have counted them out against SD Worx’s powerhouses, Lidl-Trek have always held on to the belief that they can match the dominance of the Dutch team, and that’s starting to pay dividends. The American team's clear strategy, alongside the openness of every rider to completely back Balsamo for victory was what won Lidl-Trek the race today at Trofeo Binda. If they keep it up, this won’t be the last victory for Lidl-Trek this season.
]]>Pogačar is an unusual bike racer; for him, easier is harder. It’s not something that really computes to us mere mortals watching at home – an average speed of 46.133kph over a distance of 288 kilometres being described as “easy” almost seems laughable. It didn’t look easy for a lot of riders, either. When the likes of Isaac del Toro and Tim Wellens were pulling turns on the Cipressa and the Poggio with their teeth gritted and their bodies rocking and rolling side to side, before dropping to the back of the peloton like dead weight when their work was done, it seemed as if they were actually finding things quite difficult.
It's true that Emirati team’s plan made perfect sense; they knew that their leader needed a much reduced bunch for a chance of breaking free from his rivals when the opportunity arose on the Poggio. This is why they hit the front of the bunch on the Cipressa in numbers, stringing out the peloton into one, long line and eventually almost halving the number of riders who remained in contention. Things went wrong for UAE when they lost positioning into the foot of the Poggio, but Del Toro’s ability to weave back to the front of the bunch and do a monumental pull for his leader, before Wellens took over, managed to save Pogačar from being isolated. Yet, as his teammates emptied themselves for him, it still wasn’t enough for the Slovenian rider. Still he shouted into his race radio, asking for more pace, more teammates, for things to be made harder. UAE Team Emirates did all that they could for Pogačar with the resources they had, but it simply didn’t work. The race hadn’t been hard enough when Pogačar’s inevitable attacks came on the Poggio, others could follow him and he would not ride solo to the finish line like he had in Strade Bianche just a few weeks before.
It’s hard to fault the approach of UAE Team Emirates at Milan-Sanremo this year, but it’s fair to question the execution. Pogačar needed the pulls of his teammates to be stronger and harder, so that the sprinters, like eventual race winner Jasper Philipsen (Alpecin-Deceuninck), were put under pressure, but what they did wasn’t enough. Was this really the fault of strong riders like Del Toro and Wellens, though, or can the failure of UAE Team Emirates’ plan be put down to the parcours of Milan-Sanremo?
While the climbs of the Cipressa and the Poggio are challenging, especially after over 250km of racing, their lengths and gradients don’t seem to be enough for Pogačar or his teammates to really make the difference. The Slovenian rider's strength lies in his ability to produce long, sustained, powerful attacks, as he did in Tuscany earlier this season, but Milan-Sanremo doesn’t offer the terrain for Pogačar to do this. It isn’t a race that can be won on pure power or long-range moves, it’s a game of risk and chance with a fascinating, tactical, explosive finale where the strongest rider on the day might not always win. Some may argue that Paris-Roubaix will be the biggest obstacle in Pogačar’s path to win all five Monuments, but, by gaining weight and focusing on the Classics, there are certain things he can do to prepare for a race like Roubaix. He can’t change the parcours of Milan-Sanremo, however.
The 2024 edition also showed that as modern sprinters, like Jasper Philipsen, Michael Matthews (Jayco-Alula) and Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) steadily become better all-rounders, it’s going to be harder and harder to drop them on the Poggio each year. The fast and aggressive nature of modern racing, especially in Grand Tour stages, means that sprinters are being forced to change so that they can get over tricky climbs and have a shot at the finish line. Pogačar is likely never going to be able to match the pure speed of a rider like Philipsen, so if he can’t get rid of him on the way to the line at Milan-Sanremo, how will he win this race?
There has been plenty of talk about Pogačar’s ability to rewrite the Sanremo script and make it a sprinter’s Monument no more, but this year’s race might have proved that even he can’t change the narrative of one of cycling’s oldest bike races. We’ve seen Pogačar race enough now to know that we never truly know what to expect from him, but Milan-Sanremo is proving to be a complicated puzzle for him to solve. At just 25 years old, Pogačar has a long career ahead of him to achieve that elusive goal of winning all five of cycling’s Monuments, but he may need to go back to the drawing board when it comes to Milan-Sanremo.
]]>Tadej Pogačar, the race favourite and two weeks on from his Strade Bianche masterpiece, hesitated on the Cipressa, but tried once and tried again on the Poggio. Usually, the Slovenian just needs one throw of the dice, but on both, he was unable to dislodge his rivals. It seems that it’s not always as easy as a PlayStation game.
Mathieu van der Poel, a winner in the season’s first Monument just 12 months ago, marshalled Pogačar like a bodyguard looking for a pay rise from an observing boss, always attentive to a fuse being lit, and always ready to counter-attack.
Matej Mohorič, the masterful descender, tried to get away a few kilometres down the Poggio’s twisting road from where he famously attacked to win in 2022. Tom Pidcock, the Slovenian’s great descending adversary, jumped clear on the Via Roma, he and Matteo Sobrero of Bora-Hansgrohe intent on foiling the approaching sprinters.
Each and every move looked like being the decisive one, the moment where this most breathtaking of finales would finally climax. But they never were. Not quite lurking at the back, but hanging onto the aforementioned players by their coat tails at times, were a selection of sprinters, that species of bike riders who once dominated this marathon race but in recent years have been sidelined by the do-it-all superstars.
There was Mads Pedersen, in the form of his career. So too was there Michael Matthews, a performer in the same mould as Pedersen, and also Jasper Philipsen, undoubtedly the fastest sprinter of them all.
Image by Getty Images
For the trio to have their shootout, though, they needed the escaping Pidcock and Sobrero to be caught. Cue Van der Poel: sacrificing his own chances to aid teammate Jasper Philipsen, the rainbow jersey dragged back the pair, allowing the three fast men to come through and settle the most intriguing of contests.
Mads Pedersen went first, backed by his long-time companion and another former winner of this race, Jasper Stuyven, but he faded as the line approached. It paved the way for Philipsen and Matthews to provide the denouement. It needed a photo finish camera to write the final settlement, though, and when it did, it confirmed the former and not the latter as the victor, Philipsen’s maiden Monument triumph. Michael Matthews, a podium finisher at this race for a third time, must wonder if he’ll ever be able to conquer this beast. So too will Pogačar, who impressively, but not surprisingly given he is Tadej Pogačar, came through for third.
Analysis will question the tactics of the big teams – especially UAE Team Emirates who spent most of their bullets on the Cipressa – but sometimes there’s a case to be made for not pouring over the details of the coulds, the woulds, and the shoulds, and instead enjoying and basking in the spectacle put on week after week by an extraordinary group of bike riders.
This was the fastest ever edition of the iconic, historic and beautiful race, and there was also the fastest ever ascent of the often decisive Poggio (5-39). The top-10 counted Tour de France winners, world champions, and victors of cobbled Classics. In other words, two handfuls of Galáticos.
Few races attract such a varied cast of actors, and few races can prompt such a dizzying, suspenseful and tense final hour of racing. But for racing to be captivating, to stir the emotions, to get the viewer off their couch and onto their feet, bike racing needs effervescent bike riders who want to make the race go pop, fizz and bang.
We are blessed in this era to have cyclists who understand this glorious sport is a form of entertainment. And on the third Saturday in March, as winter begins to roll into spring, we were blessed once again by another remarkable race.
TV viewers thought they had guessed the winner five, six or seven times, but they were never right, because charging through right at the death, further consolidating his title not just as a fastman but an all-rounder who can negotiate bumps in the road, was a 26-year-old Belgian man who is staking his claim as this extraordinary generation’s most turbo-charged and speediest man. As ever, Milan-Sanremo delivers, and for the 14th consecutive year, it’s a new winner on the podium - this one by the name of Jasper Philipsen. "It's incredible,” he beamed. “A Monument is something you dream of.” ]]>It will begin with a short fight for a breakaway to establish itself – which will usually end up being a few riders from smaller teams who are looking to get their sponsors some prime television time. The peloton will meander along a few minutes behind the break, but as the kilometres tick down, the pace of the bunch will go up. It will go like this until the catch is eventually, almost inevitably, made. For a long time, things will be relaxed, easy, stress-free.
When the race’s penultimate climb, the Cipressa, begins to loom in the distance, the tension will rise as teams jostle for position on the winding Italian lanes. Once they hit the base of that ascent with just 20 kilometres left to race, it will be fireworks. These will explode up and over the final climb of Poggio and continue to fizz down the technical, tense descent into Sanremo. A winner will be decided one way or the other in that final 20 kilometres of racing, but at least the peloton knows in advance where the racing will really kick off. Or do they?
Out of the 175 riders taking part in Milan-Sanremo, there is one in particular who everyone will be watching: the swashbuckling Slovenian superstar of Tadej Pogačar. Milan-Sanremo might historically always follow the script, but Pogačar is starting to make a habit of improvisation. Everyone knows what happened at Strade Bianche a few weeks ago, when the UAE Team Emirates rider did the impossible, dropping the entire peloton with 80 kilometres still left to race on the white Tuscan roads and riding solo to the win by almost three minutes. Things like that aren’t really supposed to happen in modern bike racing, but Pogačar is making us question everything we thought we knew about the sport.
With this in mind, is it really so inconceivable that Pogačar could do something very different at Milan-Sanremo this year? A solo attack like his Strade spectacle would be a tall order given the flat terrain that shapes the majority of the race, but if everyone is expecting things to kick off when the peloton hits the Poggio – and the entire bunch will be watching what Pogačar does when he gets there – can we count out a longer range solo move from the Slovenian? Although anything is possible when it comes to Pogačar, it seems improbable that he’ll try to split the race before the final two climbs, because there simply isn’t the terrain to do so, but UAE Team Emirates making a move before the Poggio is something that should seriously be considered.
It’s true that successful attacks on the Cipressa are few and far between in the history of Milan-Sanremo – the last time a move worked on that penultimate climb was in 1996 when Gabriele Colombo won the race alone after forcing a small selection. It's also true that, normally, attacks on the Cipressa end up being caught on the coastal road to the the Poggio, but normally, riders don’t win Strade Bianche by three minutes. Pogačar does things that people don’t expect, and a move on the Cipressa could be one of them.
The other option that the 25-year-old has is to wait until the Poggio to launch his attack, with the aim of reducing the group and winning a sprint to the finish. The nature of the Poggio climb means that it’s probably not quite hard enough for Pogačar to go solo here, but he has a good chance of getting the edge in a sprint from a select group if his team has made the race hard enough to get rid of some of the fast men. Last year, Pogačar did his best to drop everyone on the Poggio, making the race hard enough to create a selection, but leaving himself open to the storming attack by Mathieu van der Poel over the crest of the climb. Pogačar can’t make the same mistake again, which is why an attack on the Cipressa could be the answer to ensuring he isn’t caught out on the Poggio.
A problem that Pogačar could face in Milan-Sanremo is that everyone will be watching him, expecting his attack to come. This means that he’s unlikely to be able to have any element of surprise, and we could see him watching and following the moves of others, rather than making the race himself. Equally, he told the world the exact point he would attack at Strade Bianche, and everyone knew it was coming, yet they still had no response. Maybe Pogačar’s form on Saturday will simply be so good that even if his tactics are anticipated, he’ll still be able to distance his rivals.
If there’s one thing cycling fans have learnt over the past few seasons, is that the sport is constantly changing. Scripts are being ripped up by riders like Pogačar –we can watch races with expectations of how things are going to go, but with him on the startline, everything feels a little bit more uncertain. For those racing the Slovenian rider, it makes their lives harder than ever. For fans of the sport, there’s never been a more interesting time to watch bike racing.
]]>SD Worx might be undisputed patrons of the peloton, conquering all before them and last year attaining a level of superiority rarely seen in the history of cycling, but there is one WorldTour Classic that has eluded them of late. It’s now been eight years since the team last won Trofeo Alfredo Binda, during which time they’ve won multiple editions of virtually every other major Classic. This Italian race might not boast the fame of a Strade Bianche, Tour of Flanders or Liège–Bastogne–Liège, but it nevertheless has considerable prestige in women’s cycling as one of the biggest spring Classics, with a prime spot the Sunday after Ronde van Drenthe and before Gent-Wevelgem.
Where SD Worx have failed, Lidl-Trek have stepped into the void, and have made Trofeo Alfredo Binda their Classic. Shirin van Anrooij’s victory here last year was the team’s third in successive editions, a record unmatched by any other team in the race’s 17-year history as an international event. They might have grown ever more exasperated and out of ideas on how to combat SD Worx in most races, but the hills here in Lombardy have proven to be a happy hunting ground for Lidl-Trek.
The manner in which Lidl-Trek won those races is also notable for how dominant they were. Last year, they even pulled off a one-two with Elisa Balsamo holding back and following wheels in the chase group before finally winning the sprint for second, while Van Anrooij soloed to victory after an attack 25km from the finish that no rider, SD Worx or otherwise, marked. In 2022, Lidl-Trek took it upon themselves to control the race and keep things together to ensure a sprint finish for their leader Elisa Balsamo, no mean feat in a race as hilly as this one that is rarely decided by a sprint. Yet, they managed to do just that, shutting down multiple attacks from a variety of quality puncheurs, including then SD Worx’s Ashleigh Moolman-Pasio, Chantal van den Broek-Blaak and Marlen Reusser, and still retaining Van Anrooij, Elisa Longo Borghini and Ellen van Dijk in the final kilometres to help protect Balsamo and guide her to sprint victory. And the year before, they triumphed with a completely different approach, with Borghini going all in with a solo attack 25km from the finish, and soloing to a massive 1-42 victory over Marianne Vos in second.
So what is it about Trofeo Alfredo Binda that makes it such a strong race for Lidl-Trek? The significance of it being an Italian race should not be underestimated. Along with Strade Bianche, it’s one of only two Italian Classics in the WorldTour, and, despite being an American-registered team, Lidl-Trek is home to some of the top Italian riders in the world in the form of Borghini, Balsamo, and recently emerged Gaia Realini. For them, this race is one of the key targets of the spring.
Other teams and riders don’t prioritise Trofeo Alfredo Binda to the same degree. It’s notable how SD Worx have not sent their best riders here for the past few editions. Moolman and Van den Broek-Blaak shared leadership duties for the team in 2021 and 2022, followed by Lorena Wiebes last year; on no occasion has either Lotte Kopecky or Demi Vollering represented the team here, and the team’s former talisman Anna van der Breggen neglected to ride it in the last four years of her career. The same applies for many of the peloton’s biggest stars — Annemiek van Vleuten, for instance, did not appear in any edition from 2018 until her retirement last year, having done so in every prior season of her professional career.
It’s still a prestigious race, but has gone a little out of fashion since other, newer Classics have been added to the spring that carry with them more prestige due to their history in men’s cycling, such as Amstel Gold Race, Liège–Bastogne–Liège, and, of course, Paris-Roubaix. Having to negotiate a more intense spring schedule, it seems many riders have felt that they are better off resting this particular weekend in anticipation of Flanders Week and the major cobbled Classics that begin with Brugge-De Panne on Wednesday, and the full week of Ardennes Classics that follow.
That looks like it will be the case again this year. If either Vollering or Kopecky are to ride this year, it will be as last-minute additions, as neither were listed on SD Worx’s incomplete startlist, as of two days before the race. In any case, the fact that this race hasn’t been locked in as part of their schedules indicates that it’s less of a priority for them than other Classics during the spring. Instead, Marlen Reusser is down to start for the team, and has before flourished when freed from super-domestique duties to ride as leader.
To win, Reusser will likely have to go clear on either the Orino or Casale, the two short climbs that feature in the race’s finishing circuit, tackled five times. Neither are especially hard in isolation, but the frequency of the climbs generally weighs the race in favour of puncheurs over sprinters, and Reusser’s lack of a finishing kick, plus the expected lack of either Kopecky or Wiebes, means SD Worx will likely be relying on one of her trademark powerful solo attacks.
The same applies to many other teams. Canyon//SRAM are typically very aggressive, and will have Elise Chabbey and Soraya Paladin to try and animate the race. Fenix-Deceuninck’s young cyclo-cross star Puck Pieterse has also caught the eye with her aggressive racing in the early races of what is her first full programme of spring Classics, and was especially determined to avoid a sprint finish at last weekend’s Ronde Van Drenthe, where she attacked relentlessly. And though UAE Team ADQ do have Sofia Bertizzolo to fall back on in the event of a large group sprint, their best bet for victory looks like her fellow Italian Silvia Persico, who is perfectly suited to this kind of hilly parcours.
Once again, though, Lidl-Trek are best-poised to defend their title. Both the riders who sealed their one-two last year, Van Anrooij and Balsamo, will be present again, and will provide the team with the tactical advantage of having a plan for whatever shape the race takes, with Van Anrooij capable of winning a selective race from a break, and Balsamo from a sprint. They’re both in great form, too, with Van Anrooij making the elite selections at both Omloop Het Nieuwsblad and Strade Bianche to finish in the top five, and Balsamo already winning two sprints during her season debut at Volta Femenina de la Comunitat Valenciana. Add to that the quality of Gaia Realini and Lizzie Deignan, who, depending on circumstances, could either be used in super-domestique roles to control the race or as attackers to disrupt it, and the team has all bases covered. They’ll be confident of extending their winning run here to a fourth year.
]]>“Sometimes it's crowded. Sometimes we're at races with three or four leaders, but I think usually there's a good balance of being able to cue off each other in the races. In the end, usually the strongest guy will rise up,” McNulty says. “It's hard when you have a race you want to target and there's three guys that are on the same level as you, but the team winning is more important.”
Despite his clear talent and ability to race for the general classification, something McNulty has proved already in 2024 with both his climbing prowess and time trialling ability, the American won’t be part of the UAE Team Emirates Tour de France team in 2024 for the second year in a row. Speaking openly, McNulty admits that there is a part of him that wishes he had the chance to compete in the sport’s biggest race.
“It is fun to go and try to be on the team that wins or is fighting for the podium, but then also it’s all in for Tadej [Pogačar]. There’s not really room to go for it in stages or anything which I'd like to go for. So it’s disappointing not to go, but also I see other opportunities open up elsewhere.”
McNulty is insistent on his satisfaction with UAE Team Emirates, despite some critics questioning his choice to remain with a team in which he isn’t the sole leader. The American rider points to the freedom that his team gives him outside of racing and the understanding that they have of his needs as a crucial element in his success.
“I missed team camp this winter, so I stayed home for a long period of time. Usually they let riders who live far away miss it, Finn Fisher-Black stayed home in New Zealand too,” McNulty says of his winter preparing for the 2024 season in Arizona. “I like being at home. It's home, it's comfortable. I can do my training perfectly and it’s where I know.”
McNulty on his way to winning the time trial at the 2024 UAE Tour (Image: RCS)
Since the start of his career, McNulty has been a rider who values comfort when it comes to the team he chooses. Despite winning the World Championships as a junior, the 25-year-old spent three years with ProContinental team Rally Pro Cycling as an under-23 rider before turning professional, despite having offers from WorldTour outfits. It was the lack of pressure and a long-term development plan that originally attracted him to UAE Team Emirates.
“At that time, it was still kind of a smaller team, it was just merging into what it is now. It was an opportunity for me to jump on a rising team, so the timing was right because I was trying to build into a good rider and they were trying to build the team,” McNulty says. “It seemed like the right fit, and it has turned out to be a good decision.”
It’s true that McNulty has flourished in the Emirati team’s set-up, winning his first Grand Tour stage last year at the Giro d’Italia. While he has a proven track record as a breakaway specialist who can hunt for stage wins, McNulty also has a natural knack for time trialling. While some riders spend hours in the windtunnel optimising their positions, the American rider explains that getting aero comes easily to him.
“I've always had a steady motor and I've never really been like a super punchy rider or anything, so I've always just been able to do a high power for a long time,” McNulty explains. “Also, I think I'm quite comfortable in the position, even when I was a little kid I always wanted my bars to be super low. I know a lot of guys who get on the TT bike and instantly lose a lot of power, where I was always feeling like I can do similar power, if not more sometimes.”
McNulty points out that his teammates like Mikkel Bjerg place plenty of focus into reducing their CdA (coefficient of aerodynamic drag) but explains that when the UAE Team Emirates’ engineers call him in for testing, there often isn’t much they can do to make his position better than it already is.
“It’s funny, we just did track testing in Valencia and I literally did one run and the CdA was already so low that they were just like, there’s not really much we can even test,” McNulty says. “I guess I'm fortunate, I don't have to stress too much about trying all new positions, I naturally just find one that's really fast.”
McNulty on the podium of Paris-Nice 2024 (Image: ASO/Billy Ceusters)
A proud American, McNulty adds that he hopes to put his time trialling talent to use at the Paris Olympics later this year. He finished in sixth place at the road race in Tokyo three years ago, but will head to France with his eyes firmly set on putting in a good performance for his national team.
“I’d love to go well in Paris. As an American, I think it's special. You get so used to being in this world where we're kind of a minority in cycling, like our national team is smaller than the rest, but then you go to the Olympics and the USA is kind of the powerhouse nation. It’s really cool to see that,” McNulty explains.
It’s not just in time trials that McNulty hopes to excel in 2024. He explains that he wants to top the podium in a one-week stage race this season and longer term, his pipe dream is winning the Tour de France. McNulty is a rider who has struggled on the toughest mountains over the years, but he references Vuelta a España winner, Sepp Kuss, as a source of inspiration that winning a Grand Tour isn’t out of the question.
“A real bucket list race is GC at the Tour de France, but I guess that’s anyone’s dream. Realistically at least one stage of the Tour would be great to win,” McNulty says. “It’s hard to say if it would be possible, I always hope, but then you see how good those top-five guys are in those races and I don’t know. Someone like Sepp gives me inspiration though, we’re very different riders, but we were on Rally together years ago, so I’ve seen him come through which has been cool.”
While McNulty is insistent that he’s happy to ride as a domestique for some of the year as part of UAE Team Emirates, it’s clear that the 25-year-old still strives to have his own chances to win. He’s signed a long-term contract with his current team which he says gives him added security, but it’s possible that it will be necessary for McNulty to look elsewhere if he really wants a chance at being a GC leader.
“I think security [of a long contract] is nice, you can race with a little more calm competence. It also shows the team’s trust in me which helps our relationship,” McNulty says. “It’s always good to ride for Tadej because there’s a good chance the team will win. He’s never really stressed, but sometimes he wants to go all in early, which makes it harder for us sometimes, but it’s fun. I'm always happy to do that role as a domestique, but also I have to find opportunities.”
Cover image: ASO/Billy Ceusters
]]>Whenever one of the peloton’s so-called 'big six' ride a race with none of the other five present, it’s beginning to feel like victory for them is a foregone conclusion. That’s certainly been the case during the early weeks of this season. Jonas Vingegaard (Visma-Lease a Bike) has stormed to two successive overall titles plus five stage wins in the two stage races he’s competed at so far, O Gran Camiño and Tirreno-Adriatico, while Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates) obliterated the field with a stunning 80km attack to win his one and only race of the season so far, Strade Bianche. Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease a Bike) might not have won Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, but a Visma-Lease a Bike teammate did with his assistance, and he himself was triumphant only a day later at Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne; and though Remco Evenepoel (Soudal–Quick-Step) finished second behind Matteo Jorgenson (Visma-Lease a Bike) at Paris-Nice, he was victorious at both his first stage race (Volta ao Algarve) and classic (Figueira da Foz, via a huge solo attack) of the year. With Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck) not starting his 2024 season until this weekend at Milan-Sanremo, the only member of the big six not to have got off to a winning start is Primož Roglič, who looked out of sorts at Paris-Nice.
So when Tadej Pogačar starts Volta a Catalunya next week as the sole representative of the big six, he will inevitably be the overwhelming favourite for overall victory. Though he’s only had one day of racing so far in 2024, there’s certainly no doubts about his form following his crushing display at Strade Bianche — if anything, he looks even stronger than ever. And he has a near-perfect recent record in stage races, winning GC in all but two of the nine he’s ridden since the summer of 2021 (the exceptions being the two Tours de France in which he finished second behind Vingegaard). Put simply, there’s a huge gulf between these six riders and the mere mortals that make up the rest of the peloton, and therefore between Pogačar and the rest of the riders taking part at Volta a Catalunya.
But before we write the race off as a likely one-horse race, there are some reasons to believe that Pogačar might not find sealing overall victory here quite as straightforward as all of this suggests. After all, the recent Paris-Nice threw up a surprise without either Evenepoel or Roglič winning, and demonstrated how these kind of week-long stage races can be unpredictable and not necessarily go by the script. And the specific characteristics of Volta a Catalunya arguably make it a race not best suited to Pogačar’s strengths.
For one thing, as Pogačar becomes more and more of a Classics rider, for whom one-day races are more of a priority than they are for his rival stage race GC riders, it’s unclear whether he remains quite the force in stages races as he used to. We only fleetingly see him race in stage races anymore. In fact, excluding the Covid-affected 2020 season, he has taken part in fewer stage races in every year of his professional career, falling from six in his neo-pro 2019 season to just three last year. He’s only scheduled to ride three this year, too, with only the Giro d’Italia and Tour de France lined up after Volta a Catalunya.
As he masters the explosive style of racing required to win classics like Il Lombardia and the Tour of Flanders, could it be that he’s diluted some of the skills that made him such an unstoppable stage racer? The demands of stage racing are different from one-day racing, requiring consistency and recovery over several days rather than just several hours, and even someone as gifted as Pogačar needs to be careful to measure their efforts. And unlike Classics, which feature hills rather than mountains, the decisive terrain of stage races tends to be longer climbing efforts up much bigger summits.
These are the kind of tests that have exposed rare weaknesses in Pogačar’s repertoire. At the 2022 Tour de France, he was punished for riding stage 11 more like a Classic than a GC contender at a stage race, restlessly following every move and shutting down every attack from his Jumbo-Visma rivals on the Col du Galibier before suddenly running out of gas, being dropped, and ultimately losing the yellow jersey. And last year, he was badly exposed on the category hors Col de la Loze, running out of legs halfway up the mammoth 28km climb and being dropped for good by Vingegaard, uttering the now famous words: “I’m gone. I’m dead.”
Intriguingly, the route of this year’s Volta a Catalunya includes multiple hors category mountains that, though not quite in the league of the Galibier and Col de la Loze, are at least comparable in length. Stage three finishes with an ascent of Vallter 2000, a 13km effort that averages a hefty 7.3%. Stage four’s summit finish at Port Ainé is even longer, at 18.5km, and rises at a far from simple 6.8%. And though the Coll de Pradell is tackled mid-way into stage six rather than at the end, its vital statistics of 14.6km at 7.1% still makes it a potential game-changer. These are the kind of mountains that Pogačar blew the opposition away from earlier in his career, but does not quite seem so commanding on anymore. With no time trial to stamp his authority on the race, might there be an opening for other riders to take him on these climbs?
And who might those other riders be? Based on how dominant they’ve been these past few years, and given that it was their rider Matteo Jorgenson who upset the favourites at Paris-Nice, Visma-Lease a Bike could be a threat. We’ve seen in past Grand Tours that Sepp Kuss has the ability to drop Pogačar in the high mountains, and he’ll be riding alongside the prodigiously talented Cian Uijtdebroeks, who could have a first leadership role at the team having helped guide Jonas Vingegaard to overall victory at both Tirreno-Adriatico and O Gran Camiño. There’s plenty of pedigree in Ineos Grenaiders’ line-up, and if Geraint Thomas can reach the form that has seen him win multiple WorldTour stage races in the past, and Egan Bernal continue his recovery that has already come on leaps and bounds these past few weeks, they too could be contenders. Simon Yates (Jayco-AlUla) can be a match for anyone in week-long stage races like this, while the likes of Aleksandr Vlasov (Bora-Hansgrohe), Mikel Landa (Soudal–Quick-Step), Tao Geoghegan Hart (Lidl-Trek) and young talent Lenny Martinez (Groupama-FDJ) will enjoy the mountainous parcours. Despite Pogačar’s presence, the Volta a Catalunya might not be as foregone a conclusion as it seems.
]]>“I think there was a feeling that some people didn’t think I deserved to win the Worlds. I didn’t feel pressure afterwards, though, because I’m quite realistic. The year before I won, I wasn’t dominating every time trial, so for me to come the next year expecting to win every TT was unrealistic,” Foss states, now 18 months on from the greatest victory of his career. “I accept that winning Worlds was one big thing, but the chances of always being up there afterwards were just the same as before. When it comes as a surprise, some people think you get it for free, I guess.”
Foss’ ability to overcome the difficulties he faced last year as part of Jumbo-Visma can also be put down to the fresh chapter he is starting with the Ineos Grenadiers in 2024 – his contract with the Dutch outfit wasn’t renewed after two years and the British WorldTour team have signed him up until 2026. He speaks about growing up as a fan of the sport, playing ProCyclingManager as a 13-year-old and watching Ineos (then Team Sky) dominate the world of professional cycling.
“I think leaving Jumbo was mutual. Other teams had a spot for me for bigger possibilities than Jumbo have. It was fair and square. Also money-wise, if you have a bigger role, you’re going to be paid more. There was no space at Jumbo for that, but there are no bad feelings,” Foss says. “It’s all about being on a good team and finding your position, and Ineos was a great choice for me. They have big riders but they are more open than Jumbo. With Jonas [Vingegaard] and Wout [van Aert], those big stars, it’s understandable. I always loved Sky back in the day and it felt kind of special, I’m coming to my dream team.”
Foss on the Ineos Grenadiers team training camp (Image: Ineos Grenadiers)
It hasn’t taken long for the Norwegian rider to find his feet with Ineos Grenadiers and he praises the team’s meticulous preparation in the off-season. From equipment testing to medical checks, Foss argues that Ineos are searching for the same, if not more, marginal gains compared to his former team.
“We did the biggest medical screening I’ve ever done with Ineos. They do it every year, it was way bigger than I'm used to. We found out that I’d had the kissing disease [also known as mononucleosis or glandular fever], the test indicated it had always been in my body,” Foss says. “At what time in the season, we don’t know, but looking at the last years I had been struggling with my body. There was an imbalance in my health system that made me quite unstable.
“I would do really well often in time trials and short efforts, then struggle to find the consistency on the bigger races and the longer races. I was quite sick for a month or so last year and then for the rest of the year I was unstable. I would train for a maximum of 20 hours per week and then break down and start again. It was nice to get some answers now and I had a really long off-season so now my body is healthy and better than ever.”
So far in 2024, Foss’ performances have been promising, and he believes that he is only at the start of his recovery. A fourth place in the time trial at the UAE Tour proved that, although he’s not yet winning, Foss still has the potential to compete with the best in the world. It’s not just in medical testing that the 26-year-old has noticed a step up with Ineos Grenadiers, either. He also notes that the team has a wealth of knowledge when it comes to time trialling expertise, lauding the work of Ineos’ performance engineer and elite track rider, Dan Bigham, in helping the team prepare for time trials.
“This team is full of great people and great humans. Bigham and our other performance engineers are doing a great job on the equipment side and it’s a big improvement from last year’s and we still keep on improving,” Foss says. “We have a lot of experience and it’s no coincidence that both Josh [Tarling] and Filippo [Ganna] are doing so great on the time trial side.”
Although Visma-Lease a Bike is known to be one of the most experimental and forward-thinking team’s in the modern peloton – and they have the budget to back this up – Foss believes that the Ineos Grenadiers’ focus on performance gains is special.
“Ineos have two guys who are dedicated for testing and that’s really unique for the team. They spend a lot of time on it, but the equipment needs to go that far and the guy on the top needs to do the rest,” Foss says. “Jumbo was really good aerodynamic-wise but, in the end, if you put a rider like Wout on any bicycle he’ll perform quite well. But I’m very confident that the support on Ineos will be as good as I had last year.”
While he is in a team filled with some of the most scientific minds in the sport, Foss adds that, personally, he prefers to focus on his physical performance rather than becoming obsessed with finding aero gains himself.
“I try to stay away from all the numbers as much as possible. Of course, I need to do some things myself and then be on top of it, but I also have a team that is on top of it and there’s no need for me to worry too much. I think it could do more damage mentally. In the end, you need to be fast and have good equipment but you also need the legs and power, I’d rather put my focus on that,” Foss says.Foss on his way to finishing in fourth place in the time trial stage of the 2024 UAE Tour (Image: Getty)
Foss hopes that the road ahead involves steady progression to his best level as he utilises the support and expertise of his new team. The thought of playing the long game and remaining patient in his career isn’t alien to the Norwegian rider – he mentions the three years he spent in the under-23 category as crucial to his development. While it’s not uncommon for riders to join the professional ranks straight out of juniors in modern cycling, Foss credits racing as an under-23 as crucial to him learning how to race and deal with the ups and downs that elite sport throws at athletes.
“If I did what I did as a junior now, I would also have gone pro quite quickly I think, because times have changed. I feel like now, everyone wants the new Remco [Evenepoel] and it also seems that the young guys are basically training the same hours as pros,” Foss says. “I was happy for my development that I turned pro a bit later. Because Edvald [Boasson Hagen] comes from the same town as me and turned pro, I always believed that if I worked hard, it would come sooner or later.”
His impressively level-headed and mature mindset means that Foss is acutely aware that he likely won’t see immediate success in the 2024 season. Instead, he’s ready to work towards the podium again with Ineos, accepting that, although he has been a world champion before, his progression hasn’t been linear, and that’s just the way the sport works.
“Because of my struggle with health last year, we need to build it up. I’m not expecting too much in the first half of the season, I’m just getting some races in. I felt better than I have in a very long time after this winter. I still want to race hard but it’s about getting in the rhythm again and building up a good foundation,” Foss says. “I’m on the long list for the Giro d'Italia where I can be a key rider and helper for Thymen [Arensman] and G [Geraint Thomas]. After that, I need to see how I go, but the main focus will be the Olympics and I hope for a medal there in the time trial. That’s my carrot.”
The most important thing for Foss, it seems, is to hold on to self-belief despite the setbacks he has suffered. While he might have struggled to live up to the pressure of wearing rainbows and felt the impact of criticism from onlookers because of this, the 26-year-old appears more motivated than ever to prove people wrong. Luckily for him, thanks to riders such as Mark Cavendish and Geraint Thomas, cycling is a sport that loves a comeback story and it offers inspiration in swathes, something that Foss is acutely aware of.
“It won’t come for free and it is a lot of hard work. It’s nice to see that a rider like G peaked in his late 20s and is still keeping it up now in his late 30s,” Foss says. “It’s really impressive and cool to see, and it makes me believe that not every career path is the same and I have a long future ahead of me.”
Cover image: Ineos Grenadiers
]]>La Classicissima's extensive biography is made up of the most illustrious figures in the sport. Constante Girardengo took 11 podiums – and six victories – between 1917 and 1928. Learco Guerra and Alfredo Binda, and Fausto Coppi and Gino Bartali, were the protagonists of respective historic rivalries. Eddy Merckx's seven victories (1966, 1967, 1969, 1971, 1972, 1975 and 1976) made him the most successful rider in the race’s history, while Roger de Vlaeminck, Erik Zabel, Óscar Freire are other notable riders with multiple victories.
Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck)
In 2024 Mathieu van der Poel will be aiming for his second consecutive victory, a feat no one has been able to replicate since Germany's Zabel at the start of the 21st century. It won't be an easy task in a race that brings together the best combination of puncheurs, sprinters and rouleurs in the peloton, but the Dutch rider has proven he is more than capable of achieving such feats. Last year alone he achieved both Milan-Sanremo and Paris-Roubaix, whilst also placing second in the Tour of Flanders and E3 Saxo Classic. And on top of an already successful year, he earned himself the rainbow stripes, announcing himself as the world champ in Glasgow at the end of the season.
Milan-Sanremo will be his 2024 road debut after a busy cyclo-cross season where he won 13 out of the 14 races he competed in. It’s a different build up to the race last year, where he had already Strade Bianche and Tirreno-Adriatico under his belt before going into the first Monument of the season, whereas the year before where he made his road debut at Milan-Sanremo, he came third. So, we will see whether this extra focus on training instead of racing will fare better for him this time around.
Image by SWPix.com
Filippo Ganna (Ineos Grenadiers)
Filippo Ganna certainly surprised everyone last year when he placed second in 2023, outsprinting both Wout van Aert and Tadej Pogačar to the line, 15 seconds behind Van der Poel. However, the Italian time trial specialist was clearly disappointed with his performance as he crossed the line shaking his head. This year he’ll be going into the race looking for redemption, knowing he was so close to taking the biggest victory of his professional career.
Since that day, Ganna has continued to cement his sprinting abilities, with three second-place finishes at last year’s Vuelta a España, evening beating one of the peloton’s fastest men, Kaden Groves (Alpecin-Deceuninck), and by winning the overall at the Tour de Wallonie as well as two stages. The 27-year-old powerhouse has already raced several races this season, but none have produced spectacular results for him – even missing out on a time trial win to Jaun Ayuso (UAE Team Emirates) at Tirreno-Adriatico. He proved last year he can be a real contender for the one-day race, but whether he will be on top form will be a question only answered on the day.
Image by SWPix.com
Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek)
If this race’s parcours was to suit a rider, it would be Lidl-Trek’s Mads Pedersen, who possesses both the abilities to sprint and climb well – two factors needed for winning Milan-Sanremo. However, last year, while having the almost perfect race, the Dane was unable to keep to the wheel of Van der Poel, Van Aert, Pogačar and Ganna on the decisive Poggio climb, placing him sixth in the final standings. He has been vocal about wanting to achieve a Monument title, but that feat eluded him last year. Nevertheless, he still achieved a Tour de France and Giro d’Italia stage win in what was perhaps is best year yet.
He can also go into this year’s Milan-Sanremo knowing his form is good, having already won the overall and three stages at the Tour de la Provence and two second-place finishes at Paris-Nice. He has already returned to the Poggio this year to recon the climb where it went wrong for him last year with teammate Alex Kirsch, having posted a video on Instagram in early February. If he can keep to the wheels of those in front of him as the riders make their way into Sanremo, he’ll certainly be able to outsprint anyone to the line, he just needs to make sure he can play the Poggio to perfection on the day.
Image by SWPix.com
Christophe Laporte (Visma-Lease a Bike)
Christophe Laporte has always had strong finishes in the Classics, but not often because he is going for the win himself, but instead, helping the team’s superstars like Wout van Aert go for glory. Although he has proven to be a worthy winner, too, having taken victory at Ghent-Wevelgem and Dwars door Vlaanderen last year, in his role as a domestique, the limelight is not often upon him. But without Van Aert on the start line for this edition of Milan-Sanremo, Laporte may have the opportunity for the team to work for him instead.
The Frenchman’s highest placing in the race is 13th, and if it comes down to a small group sprint, Laporte could be in contention of taking the victory. He demonstrated his abilities to win from a reduced sprint in last year’s European Championship road race, where he beat teammates Van Aert and Olav Kooij, as well as Arnaud De Lie, and Pedersen, who’ll be a major threat to him in his quest for glory. Visma-Lease a Bike has the winning momentum at the moment, and Laporte could be a rider who could keep the ball rolling.
Image by SWPix.com
Matej Mohorič (Bahrain Victorious)
Matej Mohorič won the Italian Monument in 2022 with a thrilling descent from the Poggio, which took his rivals by surprise. He ended up winning the race by two seconds after a dropped chain during the final kilometre. He is a demon descender and if he can make a surprise attack like he did in 2022, it’s unlikely many will be able to keep up with him on the descent into Sanremo. However, with so many strong riders, he’ll need to ensure to keep with them all on the climbs, something he couldn’t quite achieve last year where he finished eighth.
Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates)
Despite being able to win what seems like any race, Milan-Sanremo is one race Tadej Pogačar is yet to win, despite this being his fourth participation. The best result he has had is fourth in last year’s race, but before that, he achieved fifth in 2021 and 13th in 2019. He’s won other Monuments, including Tour of Flanders and Il Lombardia three times, but La Classicissima remains a sticking point for the Slovenian. However, after an incredible season debut at Strade Bianche, where he rode to victory with an 80km solo ride, his form is clearly there and 2024 might just be the year Pogačar and his UAE Team Emirates squad nail the tactics to win Milan-Sanremo. Pogačar will be bolstered by a strong team, featuring Brandon McNulty, Tim Wellens and Marc Hirschi and will be hoping to finally add this title to his palmarès.
Image by SWPix.com
Other contenders
For Soudal–Quick-Step, Kasper Asgreen will be the team’s best chance at victory. Jasper Philipsen could also be in contention for the race, and while Van der Poel will remain Alpecin-Deceuninck’s A-plan, Philipsen will be among the favourites if the race culminates in a bunch sprint.
We know that Tom Pidcock (Ineos Grenadiers) is another rider who holds no fear when it comes to descending and could look to pull an attack like Mohorič did in 2022. But like Philipsen, the British rider may be working for another of the team’s riders. At the Tour de la Provence, Axel Zingle (Cofidis) was hot on Pedersen’s wheels, so could be a potential winner if he can stick with the group on the final climbs. However, this will be his first time racing this Monument, so racing this distance will be a first for the Frenchman.
The 115th edition of Milan-Sanremo maintains the characteristics that define the race as one of the longest races on the calendar. However, this year the start of the 288km route returns for the second time to the town of Pavia, south of Milan. This picturesque town, with a rich medieval and renaissance heritage, was the place chosen for the start of the race in 1965 as a result of an experiment by the organisers to find a better selection in the middle of the route. The decision was short-lived, as the following year the capital of Lombardy was once again the starting point.
The classic route for the first 140km is completely flat on the way to the province of Genoa, towards the highest point of the race, the Passo del Turchino. It is this climb of 3km at 5.1%, with ramps above 11% in the final part, that is responsible for changing the predominant scenario during the first half. It is too far from the finish, so it will have no impact on the result, although the descent leads down to the rocky coast of the Ligurian Sea.
From this point, the traditional winding route through the cliffs of the coast begins, with the last 60km being marked by a succession of hills. This complication in the orography begins with the chain of three "capos" (Italian for cape), with their respective lighthouses outlining the coast: Capo Mele (1.5km at 4.9%), Capo Cervo (1.8km at 2.8%) and Capo Berta (2km at 6%), where the first movements could take place. Even so, it is unlikely that any rider will be able to escape from the control of the peloton beyond the presumed initial breakaway.
Profile sourced from Milan-Sanremo website
That possibility is reserved for the last 25km of the course, where the decisive elements of La Classicissima are concentrated. The first of these is La Cipressa, 5.6km long and with an average gradient of 4.1%. During the approach kilometres there will be a constant fight for the first positions in the peloton, as being well positioned at the start of this climb is fundamental. That’s the precise time when the most explosive riders can have the chance to put the sprinters in trouble, who are usually relegated to the rear on the most demanding ramps, close to 9%.
A few kilometres further on, the famous Poggio di Sanremo awaits, when the tension in crescendo explodes as a result of the decisive attacks. With 10 km to go to the finish line, the riders face this climb described as "the most important six minutes in cycling". The Poggio (3.6 km at 3.7%) has been the scene of the decisive moves in the previous seven editions, the ultimate opportunity to distance the sprinters on the most demanding sections, with a maximum gradient of 8%, and enjoy a minimal advantage to take the victory.
Sometimes it is not the strongest rider who wins, but the one who has known how to interpret the right moment to create doubts in his rivals. And in that circumstance, taking risks on a fast, extremely technical descent on a narrow road is often the differentiating factor, as Mathieu van der Poel did last year after gaining a slight advantage in the final part of the Poggio.
The final wide streets of Sanremo, on the way to Via Roma, are chaotic, with the riders on the edge after completing more than 280 km of racing and a chase that keeps the tension up to the last metre. Indeed, the uncertainty of the final moments makes La Classicissima a unique and extremely difficult race to predict.
We think it is about time that Tadej Pogačar won this Monument, having missed out on three occasions. And after an 80-kilometre solo win at Strade Bianche earlier this month, we can't see anyone beating his current form.
*Cover image by Getty Images
]]>It’s still settling in but it’s a huge accomplishment. If I think about where I’ve come from, and the expectations that I had for myself when I turned professional, or even when I was a kid in the US wanting to be a pro, I think an achievement like this seemed so far out of reach that having done it now is a bit mind-bending.
Paris-Nice seems to be a race that suits you, and you also live locally…
I think it’s the WorldTour stage race that is the best for me, and I’ve felt that for a while. Even after my first time doing it, I could see that it really suited me well. Usually there’s only one day with really big mountains and if it’s one big day I can recover quite well from it. Also, living here, I train here all the time and I know all the roads really well.
Take us through your week…
We came into the race with the priority objective to win three sprint stages with Olav [Kooij]. They brought a pretty specific team for him. The Van Dijke brothers and Edo Affini – all three of those guys were basically just for him. But they’re also really big engines and good on the flat and good at positioning, so they helped me a lot as well. The first few stages of Paris-Nice are always so stressful that it was helpful to have a sprinter and guys who were motivated to keep him high up because it also kept me high up, so I stayed in position and out of the chaos. After the first stage, I said to somebody that it was the least stressful opening Paris-Nice stage I’d ever had, because I was out of the rough and tumble.
Once we did the TTT we focused on coming back up the GC. I wouldn’t say we had a disappointing TTT, but we didn’t get the result we wanted with the weather. I think we did a good performance for the conditions we had, but we lost quite a bit of time. From that point we had to work with what we had and try to move back up. We didn’t have the team to split the race like Quick Step or UAE, so we had to be a bit more creative and let those teams play it out and see if we could capitalise.
On Mont Brouilly, you finished with the other GC riders. Was that good confirmation of your form?
That was a good marker of where I was at. From the outside, it didn’t look great because we let Santi [Buitrago] and Plapp take time. It was a strange day, to let those two guys go, and it was the moment that I realised this race was not going to be controlled by anybody because we literally watched two, not premier GC favourites, but GC riders rider away, and no team had the ability or intention to bring them back. That set the tone for the rest of the race. I finished with Remco and had really good feelings. He did take some time, because I’m not as explosive, but I felt really good. It gave me confidence.
Read more: Pro bike: Paris-Nice winner Matteo Jorgenson's Cervélo R5
The stage to Le Colle-sur-Loup is where you gained time on Evenepoel. How did you get away, and was it planned?
It was pretty improvised. It’s not like before the stage we had it written that I would attack on the climb, but I did discuss with Marc [Reef – DS], and we agreed that if there was a moment of hesitation, to take full advantage. We looked at Plapp as an example that in this race there was going to be hesitation and there are moments to take advantage.
Roglič went, and forced Remco to come back to him, so maybe they were both a bit annoyed at each other, and that if somebody attacked, they might both expect the other to ride. I felt that and took advantage of the moment. It was a really good move. It was good timing, I had some luck and I felt great. As soon as I attacked, I still had gas to open the gap up and hold them off for a while. Once Brandon [McNulty] and Skjelmose came across, it was a perfect situation. We all had something to gain. Skjelmose sat on for most of it, but Brandon really pulled strong and we both really committed to GC.
What kind of communication did you have in the escape?
I had some choice words with Skjelmose at one point because he took me off the back a few times and forced me to close the gap to Brandon. He said that he was far down on GC and not riding for GC, but I don’t believe him for a second! They had a worse TTT than we did, but that’s not my fault. He was still in there for the GC. He took advantage of the situation and that’s fine; that’s bike racing. He knew Brandon and I would ride full gas, and there would be no scenario where we sat up and waited for everybody to come back. He was smart, but I also think he could have ridden, and still beaten me and Brandon in the sprint pretty handily. He might have ended up on the podium, looking back now, but he got a stage win, it’s all good. It was a nice coup, I would say. It wasn’t a specific GC day, but if you look at the amount of time I was able to take back that day, it was pretty significant and a big reason for my win.
What was your feeling going into the stage to La Madone d’Utelle?
I think a lot of guys saw the weather and were pretty apprehensive, just trying to survive for most of it, because it was a filthy day. From the neutral zone, it was raining and we were shivering. Everybody was trying to get to the front just so they could push a bit and make themselves warmer.
That day went by well for us. The team rallied around me and I could feel that. We let Vlasov take the stage and Brandon cracked a bit at the end. We took some time back but I was happy to not be in yellow after the finish. I know what the last day of Paris-Nice is like and I’ve watched many guys lose the yellow jersey on the last day. Psychologically it was better to be a little behind. Coming from behind you have a different mindset than if you’re in yellow and you’re sitting there waiting to get attacked.
How did you manage the last day?
Last year was my first time racing that stage and I had confidence from that because I think I was the second strongest rider that day behind Pogačar, and the stage suits me perfectly. There is not so much climbing, so it’s good for a big guy, but still hard enough to make a difference and drop the bigger guys. It’s a battle all day, so it’s a day I think I really like. There’s nothing I could have done differently.
Remco definitely went into the day trying to win the race; I felt that 100 per cent. His attacks on the [Col de] Peille were not half attacks – he was going all in every single time, to the point where after a few he couldn’t really continue. It was actually really impressive to watch, because being 35 seconds down on that day, you have to be pretty motivated to come back. He did a really good job and I was good enough that day to hang on. On Peille he noticed that after his third attack, once I started riding through, I was riding at a higher pace than he was and I think he realised I was also trying to win the race and open the gap to Brandon. Maybe he realised that we were at a pretty even level and it would be difficult to take back 35 seconds. In the end we were both going to get something out of the day. He was happy to ride, and I was happy to ride with him.
A full, in-depth interview with Matteo Jorgenson will appear in a future edition of Rouleur magazine
]]>Vingegaard’s win was expected, yet the manner in which he did so was still striking. Despite a modest time trial, he was untouchable in the mountains, attacking early on the hors category San Giacomo 28km from the finish to take the overall lead, then dropping everyone again on the Monte Petrano mountain top finish the following day to win another stage and seal overall victory. It was a performance of utter domination that indicates he’s well on track for achieving his major season goal of claiming a third successive Tour de France title.
Much less expected was Jorgenson’s success at Paris-Nice. Starting the race as at best an outside contender who’d only once before made the top six on GC at a WorldTour stage race, the 24-year old made the selection on the first uphill finish at Mont Brouilly, slipped clear with Mattias Skjelmose (Lidl-Trek) and Brandon McNulty (UAE Team Emirates) on a climb 29km from the finish during a hilly stage six, then took the yellow jersey from the latter by being the only rider able to stay with the attacks of Remco Evenepoel (Soudal–Quick-Step) on the final stage.
Jorgenson matched Evenepoel on the final stage of Paris-Nice to claim overall victory (ASO/Billy Ceusters)
It was a result that suggested Visma-Lease a Bike have pulled off another major coup by signing the American. His time at Movistar demonstrated he had clear talent, but he’s already come on leaps and bounds since signing for the team this season, preceding this breakthrough victory at Paris-Nice with some eye-catching rides on the cobbles during Opening Weekend, where he came 10km away from winning Het Nieuwsblad with a long-range solo attack. This all-around ability looks set to make him a very important rider for Visma-Lease a Bike — especially at the Tour de France, where Jorgenson is down to ride in place of the irreplaceable Wout van Aert, who’s skipping the Tour this year in favour of the Giro. It seems fair to say that Van Aert’s shoes are impossible to fill, but the signs are that Jorgenson might be able to significantly mitigate the damage of his absence.
Visma-Lease a Bike will take particular encouragement from getting the better of rivals UAE Team Emirates to win both their stage race titles last week. Jorgenson took the yellow jersey from UAE’s Brandon McNulty on the final day, while Vingegaard reclaimed control of Tirreno-Adriatico after Juan Ayuso had established himself as the early front-runner with time trial victory. Yet despite again failing to win a stage race, having also lost the leader’s jersey on the final day of their home UAE Tour last month, the team have plenty to feel positive about. Ayuso was the best of the rest of what was a strong field at Tirreno-Adriatico, while 20-year-old Isaac del Toro continued his revelatory start to the season by finishing fourth overall. Paris-Nice may not have gone quite so well, with McNulty slipping to third overall while João Almeida and Jay Vine failed to stay in GC contention, but it needs to be remembered that these riders aren’t essential to UAE Team Emirates’ Tour de France plans. Rather, those that are selected will form part of the support team of leader Tadej Pogačar, who was not present at either stage race last week, but has started the form on fire with his huge Strade Bianche victory. With Adam Yates also soon to return from a concussion injury, it’s apparent that they boast a strength in depth of climbers that even Visma-Lease a Bike can’t match.
One of the reasons Matteo Jorgenson was able to win Paris-Nice against the odds was the inability of any team to control the race, which was in part an indictment of Bora-Hansgrohe. They were deploying their marquee new signing Primož Roglič for the first time, but the Slovenian looked well short of his best form and ultimately finished down in 10th overall. They signed Roglič in the hope of competing with Visma-Lease a Bike and UAE Team Emirates at the Tour de France this summer, but the fact they brought their A-team to Paris-Nice, yet still finished well behind the B-teams of both those rival squads, does not bode well. Though it’s far too early in the season and far away from their primary goal of the Tour de France to leap to any definitive conclusions, this is nevertheless a worrying sign given how dependably consistent the Slovenian was in stage races like this while riding for previous team Jumbo-Visma. He’d won 10 of his previous 13 appearances, and of those he didn’t win, it was usually explained away by injury problems. To see him exposed for a lack of legs like this was a novelty, and can’t help but raise alarm bells.
Whether or not that was down to age beginning to take its toll on the 34-year-old, or the team not providing him with the same quality of support as Jumbo-Visma did, or something less concerning altogether, is debatable. It did not help Roglič that he began the race on the backfoot due to his team’s performance on stage three’s team time trial, where they finished down in 11th and conceded almost a minute to UAE Team Emirates. But when his attack on stage six failed to harm his rivals, and when he was dropped himself the following days, his teammates could hardly be blamed. In fact, one of them, Aleksandr Vlasov, was evidently stronger in the final few stages of the race, winning the mountain top finish at La Madone d'Utelle, and staying with Evenepoel and Jorgenson for a while after Roglič was dropped, to propel him up to fifth overall — five places higher than Roglič.
The team will be happier with how Tirreno-Adriatico went. Jai Hindley looked in great shape to finish third overall behind only Vingegaard and Ayuso, and the team also impressively took the race to Visma-Lease a Bike with domestiques Dani Martínez and Lennard Kämna ripping the peloton to shreds on the Monte Petrano summit finish. Yet even these apparently promising signs might bring with them more problems for the team. Both Hindley and Vlasov had expected to be GC leaders prior to the arrival of Roglič, and neither has been especially vocal about their willingness to play second fiddle to the Slovenian come the Tour. By outperforming him this week, they’ll feel emboldened in their case for GC leadership, and the established hierarchy at the team is already being disrupted.
As for the other rider expected to form part of the four-way tussle for yellow this July, Remco Evenepoel was happy with his second place finish and stage win at Paris-Nice. But his failure to win the race does raise more questions about whether his Soudal–Quick-Step team really is at the required level to adequately support a rider of his calibre chase stage race victories. It seemed as though Evenepoel probably was the strongest rider at the race, and, in his own words, felt he missed out on victory as a result of “tactical mistakes”. Had he a stronger team, those tactical mistakes might not have mattered. Had Evenepoel the kind of domestiques his rivals have at their disposal to support him, you can imagine them seizing control of the race on the small Côte de la Colle-sur-Loup climb that Jorgenson slipped away on, and therefore save the 54 seconds lost that day that ultimately proved to be the difference between the two at the top of the GC. Evenepoel will have Mikel Landa to support him in the mountains come the Tour, but Soudal–Quick-Step still seem short — especially given the quality of their opposing team rivals.
Cover photo by Zac Williams/SWPix
]]>Milan-Sanremo is the first Monument of the cycling season and this year will see the 115th edition of the race start in Pavia, a city just south of Milan, before travelling 288km to Sanremo in north west Italy. The race is commonly known as ‘La Classicissima’ or ‘La Primavera’ and is the longest one-day race in the professional racing calendar. It’s long, but mainly flat parcours breeds an intense build-up for six hours, before a massive crescendo in the final few kilometres.
Cycling’s Monuments are five prestigious and historic one-day races with Milan-Sanremo being the first, followed by the Tour of Flanders, Paris-Roubaix, Liège-Bastogne-Liège and Il Lombardia.
The defending champion Mathieu van der Poel won last year's edition 15 seconds ahead of second place Filippo Ganna and third place Wout van Aert, after attacking with 5.6km to go on the descent of the famous Poggio climb. He’s returning to the illustrious race, looking to defend his title for a second year – a feat no rider has achieved since Erik Zabel in 2001.
The all-time leader for wins at La Primavera is Eddy Merckx (1966, 1967, 1969, 1971, 1972, 1975 and 1976). Despite the Belgian's obvious dominance, Milan-Sanremo has often been described as the easiest Monument to finish, but the hardest to win. The last six wins have all gone to different riders in either solo attacks or small group sprints.
This year’s edition of the race will begin in the city Pavia, just south of Milan, but will merge back on to the classic route once the peloton have reached 45km of racing in Casteggio. The majority of the race’s route is flat, minus the Passo del Turchino climb, as it heads south towards the coastline, where it then heads west following the Statale Aurelia through Varazze, Savona, Albenga and Imperia. Once they’ve reached 260km, that is when the fight for victory begins.
The Cipressa is the penultimate climb and is 5.6km in length with a 4.1% average gradient. This is the first point where riders will be put into real trouble with the sprinters often spat out the back of the peloton on the harshest inclines.
After the tension has built, the riders reach the foot of the Poggio – a climb described as ‘the most important six minutes in cycling’. The Poggio has been the arena for decisive moves in the previous six editions with the strongest riders able to pull away on the steepest sections which max out at 8% in gradient. This is where Van der Poel made his move in last year’s edition, as did Mohorič the year before, both expertly handling the technical descent into Sanremo with precision and ease.
The final few flat kilometres in Via Roma are chaotic with riders fully on their limit after completing almost 300km, and if the peloton arrives into Sanremo together, the wide roads give an opportunity for those without a great sprint to make their launch for glory, as Jasper Stuyven did in 2021.
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