Key Takeaways: Tour of Flanders 2024
Key Takeaways: Tour of Flanders 2024
Breaking down the key points of Sunday's Tour of Flanders and what small decisions went into deciding how the hardest one-day race of the season was won
Mathieu van der Poel won his third career Ronde van Vlaanderen (Tour of Flanders) title (and fifth straight podium finish) and catapulted himself into an extremely elite pantheon of historically great riders after weathering early attacks from the Lidl-Trek and Visma-LAB teams and powering clear on the rain-soaked and almost absurdly steep (and slippery) cobblestones of the Koppenberg to capture victory with yet another draw-dropping solo effort. Behind, Van der Poel’s key rivals Mads Pedersen and Matteo Jorgenson wilted after expending significant amounts of energy in their early attempts to isolate and displace the eventual champion, which opened the door for Luca Mozzato and Nils Politt to surprisingly round out the podium in a messy sprint from a chase group which slowly, but surely, fought their way back after the chaos on the Koppenberg.
Tour of Flanders 2024 Top Ten:
1) Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck) +0
2) Luca Mozzato (Arkéa-B&B Hotels) +1’02
3) Nils Politt (UAE) +1’02
4) Mikkel Bjerg (UAE) +1’02
5) António Morgado (UAE) +1’02
6) Magnus Sheffield (Ineos) +1’02
7) Oliver Naesen (Decathlon AG2R La Mondiale) +1’02
8) Dylan Teuns (Israel-Premier Tech) +1’02
9) Alberto Bettiol (EF Education-EasyPost) +1’02
10) Toms Skujiņš (Lidl-Trek) +1’02
To expand on my initial Flanders thoughts from Sunday after the race, I’ve broken down the key takeaways from the Flemish Monument below:
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Race Notebook
111km-to-go: After Uno-X’s Jonas Abrahamsen attacked a few kilometers earlier (and was smartly followed by Alpecin-Deceuninck’s Axel Laurence), Matteo Jorgenson (Visma-LAB) unleashes a surprisingly strong attack on the following climb to reel them in.
111km (part 2): As Jorgenson makes this effort, Mathieu van der Poel, likely not expecting a move to go this early in the race, is caught out in the splinting groups behind.
111km(part 3): However, due to his immense strength, Van der Poel can quickly ride through these gaps and get back into wheels in the lead group while Jorgenson still drives the pace on the front. This move would be great if Jorgenson were working for a rider like Wout van Aert, but, as their leader for the race, it is too early to be burning this much energy.
100km: With Van der Poel’s key Alpecin teammate suffering a mechanical after the Jorgenson attack, Mads Pedersen increases the pace on the next cobbled climb, the Molenberg. Jorgenson responds immediately, while Van der Poel, now completely isolated from his team, is slower to reel him in.
96km: Pedersen’s move softens the peloton enough to allow Dylan van Baarle to slip off the front with a small but strong group. Pedersen, sensing this could put the isolated Van der Poel in a tough position, jumps out of the peloton and onto the back of a Tiesj Benoot (Visma-LAB)-led chase group, which soon creates a very dangerous chase group.
89km: As Pedersen drives the group, which is quickly increasing in size due to picking up the early breakaway, Van der Poel smartly sits in behind and allows his Alpecin teammates to catch back before getting to the front to wind up the pace to set up a Van der Poel bridge.
87km: As soon as they hit the next climb, Van der Poel attacks and closes the gap, which was fairly significant, in the matter of a few seconds.
86km: Pedersen uncorks a textbook move of attacking just before Van der Poel makes contact with the front group, but in order for this to work, he needs strong, neutral riders like Josh Tarling, Jorgenson, Benoot, or Van Baarle to go with him. But, the only rider who goes with him is Van der Poel’s teammate Gianni Vermeersch, who, in theory, won’t help Pedersen and all but doom this move.
83km-81km: After things settle down and Van der Poel gets his Alpecin team back on the front, Vermeersch begins pulling through with Pedersen up front, which sets up the odd sight of Alpecin pulling in the chase group while also setting the pace in the breakaway, but the purpose of this is to extend Pedersen’s time out front to wear him down before the critical portion of the race, while also keeping the gap manageable.
55km: Alpecin manages the gap to Pedersen perfectly, which allows Van der Poel to reel in his now heavily fatigued rival when they hit the second pass of the Oude Kwaremont. He attempts to ride clear after getting a slight gap over the never-ending climb but is reeled in.
45km: After sitting tight in the group on the Paterberg, Van der Poel smartly invests significant energy to enter the ultra-steep Koppenberg climb at the front of the group to get a clean line on the incredibly slippery cobblestones, which have already foiled Iván García Cortina.
44km: Jorgenson and Pedersen, who were well placed behind Van der Poel, can ride the climb without issue, but behind, the entire peloton is forced to dismount and walk up the muddy cobblestones, which is nearly impossible in road cleats.
44km: Van der Poel, who had to deploy his vast technical skill to get up and over the climb without walking, crests the top of the Koppenberg with a gap over Jorgenson. With Jorgenson and Pedersen having already expended significant energy and the rest of the peloton currently not on their bikes, Van der Poel is able to build up a significant gap in the next few kilometers.
26km:-18km: With the chase group behind fractured following the Koppenberg mess, Dylan Teuns and Alberto Bettiol set off in pursuit of Van der Poel, who is able to build up a lead of nearly two minutes by the base of the final pass of the Kwaremont.
6.1km: On the flat run to the finish after the Paterberg, Van der Poel finally begins to lose ground, with the gap to the Teuns/Bettiol group down to 1’25, while they, in turn, are being closely pursued by a Michael Matthews/Magnus Sheffield, Olivier Naesen group, who have a large group, led by four UAE riders, closing down on them.
Finish: Van der Poel, who is coming visibly unglued in the final few kilometers (he had to take a gel inside the final 4km), rolls over the finish line to cap off his record-tying third career Flanders win (and 5th consecutive podium).
Chase Group Finish: The Bettiol/Teuns group is finally caught right before the finish line, while an incredibly messy sprint, contested by riders resembling zombies, sees Luca Mozzato finish second, Michael Matthews third, and Nils Politt fourth. However, after Matthews was found to have deviated from his line and pinned Politt against the barriers, he sees a fantastic Monument podium disappear when he is relegated to last place in the group (11th).
Five Key Takeaways
1) Mathieu van der Poel & Alpecin-Deceuninck: The 29-year-old Dutch superstar ties the record for the number of career Flanders wins with his third career title, in just five years, with a herculean effort to solo clear on the absurdly steep and slick slopes of the Koppenberg and hold off the fast-chasing peloton for the final 44 kilometers of the race. Additionally, the win gives him a fifth career Monument (just five seasons after winning his first) to move into 16th of all-time and tied with Tadej Pogačar for first amongst active riders,
While a quick glance at the results would lead someone to believe this was another relatively straight-forward win for Van der Poel, viewing the full race, and watching the post-race interview, where Van der Poel was exhausted to the point of delirium, tells a different story:
Between 114km and 87km-to-go, Van der Poel was repeatedly attacked by key rivals like Matteo Jorgenson and Mads Pedersen, and even found himself isolated without teammates in a listless chase group while Pedersen appeared to power away with a strong group up front.
But instead of panicking and falling into the trap Visma-LAB and Lidl-Trek were attempting to set (as he did last weekend at Gent-Wevelgem), Van der Poel stayed impressively calm, to the point where it appeared he was letting the race-win ride clear, and waited for his distanced teammates to get back on terms.
After allowing the pace in the chase group to slow and his teammates to come back on, Van der Poel had them ratchet up the pace before jumping across to and neutralizing the dangerous Pedersen lead group in just a few pedal strokes.
This calm-headed decision-making from both Van der Poel and his Alpecin team car kept the situation from spiraling dangerously out of control and set up Van der Poel’s eventual victory.
And, after turning the screws on the second pass of the Oude Kwaremont/Paterberg, Van der Poel almost accidentally finished things off with superior positioning (1st wheel) and technical skill on the rain-soaked Koppenberg.
After being one of only three riders, alongside Jorgenson and Pedersen, in the front group to avoid walking up the ultra-slick Koppenberg, Van der Poel buried himself through the brutal final hour of racing to capture a record-tying third career Flanders win (throughout just five seasons).
Considering his raw number of wins, and near-absurd run of career finishes at Flanders (4th, 1st, 2nd, 1st, 2nd, 1st), we have no choice but to declare Van der Poel the best Flanders competitor of the modern era.
While this sounds absurd, it isn’t even close, since four wins in his first six appearances and five straight podiums at the race is almost incomprehensibly impressive in the post-war racing era.
Most impressively, even if they lacked the raw firepower of a team like Lidl-Trek, Alpecin-Deceuninck played their hand perfectly by allowing Gianni Vermeersch, who smartly marked Pedersen’s attack as Van der Poel was bridging across, as they kept a steady pace in the group behind.
While this might have looked odd, it served to fatigue Pedersen by extending his time out front (87km-55km), and eliminated a key threat before the race entered the final circuits.
We shouldn’t be surprised with their poise under pressure and odd-looking, but correct tactics, since, with a 100% Monument strike rate so far in 2024 (two wins with two different riders), it is clear Alpecin is clicking on all cylinders and is an extremely well-oiled machine.
This was no more evident than when we saw key Alpecin domestique Silvan Dillier standing on the side of the road due to a flat tire during a hectic point of the race. His rear wheel was already off and ready to take off as soon as the mechanic arrived with a fresh one. This heads-up maneuver was made possible because his team had threaded-release levers on their thru-axles versus the aesthetically cleaner, more popular hex key-only access models.
2) Matteo Jorgenson & Mads Pedersen: The two biggest pre-race rivals to Van der Poel clearly came into the race with the objective of attacking early and often to isolate, wear down, and potentially place Van der Poel in a difficult position like last week’s Gent-Wevelgem. However, the early surges from Jorgenson and bold move from Pedersen, which appeared incredibly savvy early on, aged like milk as Van der Poel, who had spent this chaotic period sitting in, upped the pace as they approached the second pass of the Kwaremont and Paterberg before riding clear a few kilometers later.
It may be easy to critique these moves in with the benefit of hindsight, especially Jorgenson’s willingness to work on the front with as much as 100km-to-go, but both riders clearly knew that their only chance of beating Van der Poel was to go early and often, and hope to catch him in a difficult situation. Also, instead of sitting around and being forced to respond to Van der Poel’s accelerations on the cobbled climbs (Pedersen said post-race that he wasn’t able to accelerate as needed after his crash on Wednesday), they were attempting to get in front of these deadly moves.
This could have worked if Van der Poel’s Alpecin team hadn’t managed a difficult situation so well to get back to their leader, and Vermeersch hadn’t been strong, and smart, enough to mark the Pedersen attack.
After all, had another rider, like Jorgenson, gone with him instead, things could have gone sideways quickly for Van der Poel.
Additionally, it is important to remember that both Visma-LAB and Lidl-Trek were working with incomplete squads, which meant that Jorgenson and Pedersen were forced to play multiple roles.
For example, if injured Lidl-Trek Jasper Stuyven had been in the move instead of Pedersen and Jorgenson had been working for Wout van Aert going into the Koppenberg, we could have been looking at a completely different outcome.
3) How Van der Poel’s Dominance Influenced the Unexpected Podium: While Van der Poel’s dominance may have given the race an inevitable feel, the race was extremely open just a minute in arrears. With multiple small groups constantly chasing and dropping each other, it was difficult to track exactly what was going on, but, in the end, every non-Mathieu van der Poel pre-race favorite, like Matteo Jorgenson, Alberto Bettiol, Tim Wellens, and Mads Pedersen faded as outsiders like Luca Mozzato, and Nils Politt (and briefly, Michael Matthews before his relegation for an irregular sprint), grabbed the podium spots.
It seems difficult to comprehend, but in a world where Van der Poel suffers a crash or mechanical, Luca Mozzato would have won one of the season's biggest races at the height of cycling’s Superstar era.
This is mainly due to two reasons: the massive crash at Dwars on Wednesday, which took out Wout van Aert and Jasper Stuyven, and the fact that the remaining Van der Poel rivals knew they had to go all in early on to have a chance of winning. This opened up major opportunities for lower-profile riders willing to race just for the podium.
In essence, no riders other than Tadej Pogačar and Wout van Aert possess the ability to handle the near-nuclear fallout associated with attempting to take on Van der Poel in head-to-head battle on a one-day course as difficult as this, and, by doing so, they will lay waste to their own chances of success.
Outside of the small Arkéa-B&B Hotels team, which will be toasting their surprised ‘best of the rest’ prize, Team UAE, who put a rider on the podium and three in the top five, including 20-year-old António Morgado, will likely be content with their day chasing a truly unbeatable Van der Poel.
UAE’s performance is even more impressive when we consider they were missing their best rider, the defending champion of this race and likely the only rider capable of matching Van der Poel’s pace, Tadej Pogačar.
4) The Tour of Flanders Produces the Most Complete Winner: The race, which was an absolutely brutal affair due to constant attacks that netted the fastest average speed of all time, showed once again why the Tour of Flanders winner should be considered the most well-rounded rider in the peloton. Not only do they have to come in with immense raw strength, but they have to be able to read the race, which can be a nearly indecipherable mess for large portions of the day, to avoid either missing a key move or overextending themselves in an early attack that proves to be a waste of energy.
The fact that a rider as strong as Van der Poel was absolutely shattered at the end of Flanders's six hours of all-out racing, and, outside of the winner, the only other riders to finish on the podium were the ones who didn’t even attempt to race for the win, shows just how hard the race was, and teased an alternative scenario where a fatigued Van der Poel was forced to go head-to-head-to-head against Pogačar and Van Aert in a repeat of last year’s fantastic finish at E3 and Tour of Flanders.
However, on the flip side, this extremely difficult race also exposed the fact that due to the absence of Van Aert, Pogačar and Pedersen being diminished after a mid-week crash, there was nobody in the race capable of staying with Van der Poel no matter what tactic they deployed, which rendered his win somewhat inevitable as long as he avoided making any massive mistakes.
5) American Depth Portends a Rising US One-Day Presence: Despite Jorgenson fading late after an extremely active race, and last year’s fifth-place finisher Neilson Powless out with a knee issue, US riders still somehow placed two riders inside the top 13 in a race no American has ever won with 21-year-old on Ineos Magnus Sheffield finishing 6th and 23-year-old Riley Sheehan on Israel-Premier Tech, riding in his first career monument, finishing an unexpected 13th.
Sheffield, a prodigy who won De Brabantse Pijl in his first pro season while still a teenager, indicates that he is back on track after a difficult Classics season in 2023, and that he, an extremely versatile talent, could potentially be a future winner of this race if he wants to become laser-focused on the cobbled races.
Sheehan’s result, given that he was contesting local criteriums in the US just a few months ago, is even more impressive, especially when we consider that he was racing in only his second career Monument and only joined his Israel-Premier Tech team late in 2023 after impressing as a student last fall (listen here to my recent BTP Podcast conversation with Riley about this period).
Intriguingly, with both riders being fairly big and strong riders with lots of technical skill, they could actually be better suited for success at next weekend’s Paris-Roubaix, where the open course will give them a better chance against Van der Poel, who is all but unbeatable for anyone not named Pogačar on the bergs of Flanders.
The fact that two young riders were able to generate these results highlights just how much quality there is among American riders, even if the raw numbers have been trending down.
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