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The Tour of Flanders brings the northern monuments to warp pace Sunday with arguably the best one-day race of the season.
Mathieu van der Poel and Lotte Kopecky line up within the rainbow bands because the five-star favorites in what is going to set the tone for 2 spectacular races.
Maybe solely Paris-Roubaix can surpass De Ronde for pure racing motion, ultra-prestige, and high-level competitors.
This yr’s editions noticed some late-hour drama, particularly on the lads’s aspect, with Wout van Aert set to overlook the massive date. On the ladies’s aspect, the unfolding contract talks about the way forward for Demi Vollering might play out on the roads this weekend.
Date: Sunday, March 31, 2024
Editions: 108th males, twenty first ladies
Begin: Antwerp (males), Oudenaarde (ladies)
End: Oudenaarde, each races
Distance: 270.8km (males), 163km (ladies)
Climate: 7C for begin, 17C for end. Slight probability of showers in morning, in any other case principally cloudy. Easterly, southeasterly winds, 7 to 19km/h, with gusts as much as 40km/h.
Defending champions: Tadej Pogačar (UAE Staff Emirates), Lotte Kopecky (SD Worx-Protime)
TV listings: Loads of choices
USA: FloBikes will livestream the Tour of Flanders by way of its app for paid subscribers. Protection begins for the lads’s race at 03h55 EST and the ladies’s race at 09h00 EST.
Europe: Eurosport and Discovery+ will broadcast De Ronde by way of its app for paid subscribers. Some European nations will even choose up the published, together with RTBF, NOS, and RAI, and others.
Australia: SBS will probably be masking each the ladies’s and males’s races. Test native listings for occasions.
Favorites males’s race: No Wout, no Pogačar
Two huge names are lacking, and their collective absences will mark the result of the race.
Van Aert crashed so heavily at Wednesday’s Dwars door Vlaanderen that the Belgian famous person noticed his total spring marketing campaign, together with Flanders, Paris-Roubaix, and Amstel Gold, over right away.
Different accidents and sickness on the tremendous squad might see Matteo Jorgenson, already on a hot streak this spring, rising because the chief at Visma-Lease a Bike.
The opposite lacking star is defending champion Tadej Pogačar, who’s bypassing Flanders altogether. After ripping across the Volta a Catalunya, he races subsequent at Liège-Bastogne-Liège earlier than heading to the Giro d’Italia.
That places Van der Poel, already on a tear to this point in 2024, firmly within the driver’s seat because the five-star favourite.
The reigning world champion can even match a report. A 3rd win would put him on the identical variety of wins as Buysse, Magni, Leman, Museeuw, Boonen, and Cancellara.
Proper behind him will probably be banged up Mads Pedersen. The large Dane additionally crashed Wednesday, however wasn’t practically as unhealthy as his teammate Jasper Stuyven, who’s out with a broke clavicle.
Different huge names embody Stefan Küng (Groupama-FDJ), Matej Mohorič (Bahrain Victorious), Alberto Bettiol (EF Training – EasyPost), Tim Wellens (UAE Staff Emirates), Alexander Kristoff (Uno-X Mobility), and Matteo Trentin (Tudor Professional Biking Staff).
Who will win? With out Van Aert or Pogačar to complicate issues, Van der Poel is the odds-on favourite.
High-10 in 2023
Favorites ladies’s race: SD Worx the favorites
Lotte Kopecky at the moment shares the report of most wins in Flanders’ Best with Mirjam Melchers-Van Poppel, Judith Arndt, and Annemiek van Vleuten
Becoming a member of Kopecky in Staff SD Worx-Protime in Oudenaarde will probably be Marlen Reusser, Demi Vollering, and Lorena Wiebes, by far the deepest and strongest staff within the race.
Lidl-Trek will probably be banging on the door, with Elisa Longo Borghini, Elisa Balsamo, Lizzie Deignan and Shirin Van Anrooij.
Marianne Vos is sizzling off a win at Dwars, with Canyon/SRAM Racing lining up with Katia Niewiadoma and Chloé Dygert bringing on the heat.
Kopecky has practically been excellent to this point this spring, and will probably be arduous to beat.
High 10 in 2023
A couple of key course adjustments for security
There are just a few vital adjustments for each programs.
After beginning in Bruges final yr, Antwerp will host the rollout Sunday, and the bunch will plow south straight towards the Flemish Ardennes. The end of each races stays on the Minderbroedersstraat in Oudenaarde.
The trendy basic finales of the Paterberg-Oude Kwaremont combo stays unchanged for each the lads’s and ladies’s races, however there are just a few tweaks for security causes, with wider and sooner roads.
“The adjustments within the first 100 km are safety-related decisions. We now have been wanting even additional for large roads in order that the peloton has more room by which to construct up pace,” stated race director Scott Sunderland. “The version from Bruges, the place we carried out an identical train for the opening hours of the race, confirmed how these large roads led to excessive averages within the opening hours. That pace finally helped to find out the form of the race and the strategic decisions of the groups.”
As everybody noticed with the tragic penalties within the men’s Dwars door Vlaanderen, the Kanarieberg and Kortekeer have been faraway from the route.
“On the best way to Kortekeer, the pace is excessive and the strain throughout the peloton could be very excessive,” Sunderland stated. “However then we’ve additionally seen prior to now two years that just a few groups determine to quietly experience up the Kortekeer. The query then is: why ought to we wish such a slender climb on the course so early within the race? Isn’t it higher to take out the Kortekeer and preserve the race open?”
The group additionally took out the Kanarieberg and the high-speed method that provoked the horrific crash Wednesday that took down Van Aert and a number of others.
“There’s a path alongside which we’ve to go to the Kanarieberg. That goes downhill and the peloton reaches a pace of 90 km/h. Whereupon the street narrows from three lanes to at least one,” he stated. “If you speak about security, you must have a look at it significantly.
“We now have analyzed the editions of latest years. We checked out whether or not somebody who attacked on the Kanarieberg or the Kortekeer ever stayed forward. So nobody.”
The race actually begins to kick off on the Koppenberg, about 45km from the end.
Not like in earlier years, the women and men will probably be taking the identical path to the Bult van Melden this yr.
“We now have opted to vary the method for the lads and to make it the identical because the one for the ladies,” Sunderland stated. “A alternative for equality, however above all for causes of security. To be particular, this modification signifies that after the primary climb of the Paterberg, the riders will cycle on roads the place it’s simpler to maintain monitor of issues. We’re making the method to the Koppenberg extra simple and are taking out the descent and sharp bend simply earlier than the climb.”
With this modification, the vehicles within the ladies’s race can observe the identical detour as for the lads’s race and staff leaders can help their riders all the best way to the foot of the Koppenberg. With this modification, the group is eliminating just a few factors the place the race had threatened to stall lately, one thing that brought on a race stoppage in Wednesday’s Dwars race for the ladies.
“These conditions had been changing into too harmful,” Sunderland stated. “Security is our highest precedence. Moreover, we additionally need to adapt our course to the best way by which the peloton races. We need to anticipate and proceed to develop the Tour to raised serve the riders. And that’s what we’re doing with this modification, however it does imply that each the Kortekeer and the Kanarieberg is not going to be included within the course this yr. However we’re including the Kapelleberg.”
Individuals in Flanders: A uncommon presence
Right here’s a great trivia query on your subsequent group experience: title the one U.S. rider to win the Tour of Flanders.
The reply is just one: Coryn Labecki in 2017, when she out-kicked Gracie Elvin and Chantal Van den Broek-Blaak in a lowered bunch dash with Staff DSM.
Kristin Armstrong was twice second (2008 and 2012) as the one different U.S. ladies to hit the celebrated podium.
On the lads’s aspect, no American has ever received De Ronde, and George Hincapie completed third within the 2006 version as the one U.S. males’s podium in race historical past.
Anticipated U.S. starters Sunday embody Chloé Dygert (Canyon-SRAM), Ruth Edwards and Lily Williams (Human Powered Well being), Labecki and Kristin Faulkner (EF Training-Cannondale), and Heidi Franz (Lifeplus Wahoo).
Males’s starters Sunday embody Dwars door Vlaanderen winner Matteo Jorgenson (Visma-Lease a Bike), Magnus Sheffield (Ineos Grenadiers), and Riley Sheehan (Israel Premier Tech). Neilson Powless (EF Training-EasyPost), fifth final yr in a breakout experience, is sidelined with injury.
Can one in every of them break by?
All in a day’s enjoyable: Timeline from begin to end
08h15: Males’s staff presentation, Antwerp Grote Markt
10h00: Begin of the Males Elite, Ernest Van Dijckkaai Antwerp
11h45: Girls’s staff presentation, Markt Oudenaarde
13h05: Passage of the Males Elite, Markt Oudenaarde
13h25: Begin of the Girls Elite and first passage, Markt Oudenaarde
15h15: Passage of the Girls Elite, Markt Oudenaarde
16h30: End of the lads’s race, Minderbroedersstraat Oudenaarde
17h45: End of the ladies’s race, Minderbroedersstraat Oudenaarde
Girls’s begin checklist: Kopecky tops the charts
Girls’s race map and profile
Males’s begin checklist: Van Aert KO’d
Males’s race route and profile
Rating the favorites: Kopecky and Van der Poel
Girls’s race:
4 stars: Kopecky
3 stars: Vollering, Longo Borghini
2 stars: Niewiadoma, Reusser, Persico
1 star: Dygert, Vos, Van Anrooij
Males’s race:
4 stars: Van der Poel
3 stars: Pedersen, Jorgenson, Küng
2 stars: Skujiņš, Wellens, Mohorič, Benoot
1 star: Trentin, Bettiol, Merlier, Alaphilippe
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