Weekend Preview: Amstel Gold

Plus, breaking down what today's thrilling edition of De Brabantse Pijl told us about the top contenders for Sunday's race

Amstel Gold Preview

This Sunday sees the kickoff of the Ardennes Classics with the running of the Netherlands’ only major one-day classic, the 256-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, barring a crash, that anyone can feasibly challenge Tadej Pogačar, who is on a dominant run this spring with four podiums through four one-day starts, including two wins, with both coming via long-range solo attacks on extremely hard courses, just like Sunday’s.

• In short, this race, which almost seems intentionally designed to favor a physically and technically superior rider, is very clearly Pogačar to lose.

  • This is especially true when we consider the rider who won the two one-day races Pogačar failed to win, Mathieu van der Poel, won’t be present.

2025 Course

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Route Map

The main climbs on the route are the Gulperberg, Kruisberg, Eyserbosweg, Keuterberg, Geulhemmerberg and the Cauberg, and for the first time in nine years, the organizers are bringing the hardest climb, the Cauberg (800m @ 6.5% avg gradient), back to the finale, with the peloton cresting it with just 2.5 kilometers remaining.

• After cresting the final pass of the climb, it is a flat run to the finish line, which means that if someone wants to attack on the steepest slopes, they will have to continue pushing over the plateau to hold off the chasing group.

  • This gives the two best climbers and time trialists in the race, Tadej Pogačar and Remco Evenepoel, a massive advantage over the rest.

    

• However, the hardest part of Amstel Gold isn’t the physical challenge of the climbing but the extremely sinuous route, which creates 256kms of racing over a relatively small region by twisting and turning through the same road-furniture-laden paths repeatedly.

  • 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, which has been a strength of Pogačar, and weakness of Evenepoel, in recent years.

What We Learned at Today’s De Brabantse Pijl

Race Notebook
47km-to-go: After Wout van Aert’s Visma team begins to press the pace, Remco Evenepoel takes off on short climb with an incredible turn of speed. Only Van Aert, who is smartly marking Evenepoel’s wheel, can stay with him, while Tom Pidcock, who was riding in front of Evenepoel, struggled to respond as he blew past. With Evenepoel settling into his steady, but absurdly fast, pace, IPT’s Joe Blackmore is the only rider able to bridge across from the chasing group behind.

30km: On a cobbled climb, Van Aert looks the strongest as he picks up the pace, while Evenepoel struggles to keep pace and Blackmore begins to drop off.

10km: However, as they approach the finish, Evenepoel now looks far stronger, with Van Aert struggling to hold the pace, partly due to getting almost no draft while being on the uber-aero Evenepoel’s wheel, while Evenepoel gets a massive break every time Van Aert hits the front.

1km: As they come into the final kilometer, Van Aert appears to have Evenepoel stuck on the front, exactly where he wants him before he launches his powerful sprint.

200m: Evenepoel, knowing his only chance is to make the sprint as long as possible, launches early.

Finish: The gambit works as a heavily-fatigued Van Aert can’t even get out of the slipstream and Evenepoel holds on for the surprise sprint win.

Key Takeaway: Ripping off the front of the race using his extremely aerodynamic position and a mild climb before outsprinting a rider who has won multiple Tour de France sprint stages, shows that Remco Evenepoel has clearly come out of his injury-induced layoff with incredible form.

• His ability to surge off the front of races to isolate his rivals and asphyxiate them with his ultra-aero position that leaves them without even a brief reprieve (while he rests easy in their slipstreams), is unmatched, and he is clearly keen to deploy it on Sunday at Amstel and next Sunday at Liège.

  • However, while it was effective today with a clearly off-their-best Van Aert and Pidcock, he still hasn’t shown us that he has the ability to succeed when racing against stronger riders, like Pogačar, who can easily parry the blunt-force move by counter-attacking and riding clear of Evenepoel.

Who Will Win?