Tadej Pogacar on Sunday won an epic see-saw showdown at the Tour of Flanders, soloing home from 15km, with Mads Pedersen edging Mathieu van der Poel to second at the line a minute later with Wout van Aert fourth.
The duel between the Slovenian and defending champion Van der Poel played out across the 17 hills in bright sunshine before Pogacar broke away. World champion Pogacar, who won the Giro d’Italia and the Tour de France last year, collected his eighth one-day Monument, moving ahead of one-day specialist Van der Poel on seven.
“The goal was to win, but at the end it’s hard to realize. I cannot be more proud of the team,” said a beaming Pogacar, who rides for UAE Team Emirates, at the end of the 270km slog before 750,000 boisterous roadside fans.
Photo: EPA-EFE
The event is not only a key event on the one day-calendar, but a shared national experience in Belgium.
“Tadej pulled off a great show for cycling,” UAE manager Mauro Gianetti said.
For once, the race embarked under bright blue skies heading into the lush green Flanders fields with windmills and happy weekend crowds gathered round beer tents.
Of the main contenders, Filippo Ganna, second at the Milan-San Remo last month, broke at 100km with fellow Italian Matteo Trentin.
They were caught and overtaken by Pogacar and Van der Poel with 60km to go, and the pair then began an infernal struggle to drop one another.
Van Aert caught the pair and briefly dropped them both. When Pogacar then retaliated, Van der Poel had nothing left in the tank.
Riding on his own into a head wind, Pogacar pulled a minute ahead of his rivals with four top riders unable to reel him in collectively.
“He’s in a league of his own,” runner up Pedersen said. “Quite frankly, I thought we’d be able to get him back.”
The one-day circus now moves on to the Paris-Roubaix mud fest on Sunday where a similar set of contenders would scrap it out on the cobbled mining roads of the border region with Belgium and France.
It will be Pogacar’s first appearance in the race.
“Roubaix is a completely different race, but I will accept the challenge and try to do my best. Flanders suits me better, but with the shape I’m in now, I should give it a try,” Pogacar said.
For the home fans, Belgian Lotte Kopecky won her third women’s Tour of Flanders in a sprint ahead of Frenchwoman Pauline Ferrand-Prevot. The other big favorite, Italian Elisa Longo Borghini, who, like Kopecky, was in contention for a third victory, was forced to abandon after a crash 95km from the finish.
There are five ultra-long one-day bike races known as the Monuments, and the Tour of Flanders is considered the greatest because of the constant steep, narrow climbs coupled with crowds that even a 100 years ago began to tip over half a million.
The other four Monuments are: Milan-San Remo, which calls for patience, the Paris-Roubaix with its perilous rough-hewn cobbles, Liege-Bastogne-Liege through the winding forested lanes of the Ardennes, and the Tour of Lombardy which is a climbers’ classic.
Shuttle buses and extra trains were laid on throughout Flanders for what is regarded by many as an unofficial world championship.
On Saturday, two amateur cyclists died from heart failure in unrelated incidents on the “We Ride Flanders” mass ride that precedes the main event along the same roads.
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