Weekend Preview: Amstel Gold 2024
Taking a look at what we can expect from Amstel Gold, the challenging one-day Dutch race that will see Mathieu van der Poel attempt to continue his campaign of nearly unprecedented one-day dominance
Amstel Gold Preview
This Sunday sees the kickoff of the Ardennes Classics with the running of The Netherlands’ only major one-day classic, the 254-kilometer Amstel Gold Race. While the race takes place in a country known for its extremely flat landscape, the course is located in the hilly Limburg region and produces a shocking amount of climbing (roughly 11,000 cumulative feet of vertical gain). The course is perfect for a rider who can explode up short climbs, has incredible endurance, and can sprint out of a small group at the end of the race, which is why it seems almost impossible, bar an abduction or crash (which doesn’t seem to happen to him), that anyone can feasibly challenge Mathieu van der Poel, who is on a historically dominant run this spring with five top tens through five races, including four podiums and three wins via 40+ kilometer solo breakaways.
In short, this race, which almost seems intentionally designed to favor a physically and technically superior rider, is very clearly Van der Poel’s to lose.
This is especially true when we consider last year’s winner, Tadej Pogačar, is yet again absent from a spring Classic to prepare for his upcoming Giro/Tour double attempt.
And, considering he is even better than he was back in 2019, when he closed down a massive gap over the final few kilometers before leading his group out, mowing down an elite front group consisting of Julian Alaphilippe and Jakob Fuglsang (and frankly making them look like juniors in the process), just a few meters before the finish line and polishing it all off with a win, it isn’t easy to imagine anyone even coming close to challenging him on Sunday.
Where/When to Watch This Weekend:
Amstel Gold Race
Women’s: Sunday, April 14th, 7:00am-8:15am EST (estimate)
Men’s: Sunday, April 14th, 8:15am-10:50am EST (estimate)
How to Watch:
Free: Tiz Cycling (enter at your own risk)
Paid: FloBikes (USA + Canada), Discovery+/Eurosport (Europe)
2024 Course
Route Map
Profile
The main climbs on the route are the Geulhemmerberg (1km @ 5%), the Bemelerberg (900m @ 4.5%), and the Cauberg (800m @ 6.5%).
The riders crest the final classified climb, the Bemelerberg, with just over seven kilometers remaining. Anyone still in the front group will have to weigh their options of pressing on to the finish in the hopes of outsprinting the other riders in their group or attacking early in an attempt to get to the line solo ahead of the rest.
However, the hardest part of Amstel Gold isn’t the physical challenge of the climbing but the extremely sinuous route, which creates 254kms of racing over a relatively small region by twisting and turning through the same road-furniture-laden paths over and over and over again
This means that a potential winner needs to be able to punch up climbs repeatedly while having the technical skill to navigate the tricky and demanding route.
Again, this is essentially just describing Mathieu van der Poel.
So, Who Will Win?
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