Weekend Preview: Tour of Flanders
Breaking down the course, startlist and how Wednesday's mass crash of pre-race favorites will influence the biggest and best one-day Monument of the season
The second of the five Monuments, the Tour of Flanders (its actual name in Flemish is Ronde van Vlaanderen, but for simplicity's sake, I will refer to it as Flanders) runs this Sunday. It might not have the global brand recognition of the Tour de France or the jaw-dropping spectacle of its sister race, Paris-Roubaix, but in my opinion, it epitomizes the best of the Cobbled Classics and serves up a well-balanced race that produces the rider with the best combination of strength/skill.
Premium Beyond the Peloton members will get an immediate take on Sunday after the race (via a Three Quick Thoughts post) before Monday’s full Key Takeaways breakdown.
2024 Course Overview
For a brief course overview, the race twists and turns over seemingly every road in Flanders to get its massive 270-kilometer length (Milano-Sanremo might be slightly longer, but Flanders is harder due to its full distance being raced at an all-out effort for the entirety of the distance), and hits seventeen climbs cobbled climbs, with some, like the Koppenberg, serving up brutally steep gradients (20%+), that has even forced riders to dismount their bikes and walk up and over the climb.
Since the addition of the brutal finishing circuit that takes the riders over the Oude Kwaremont and Paterberg twice in the final 58 kilometers, the race has become slightly more formulaic and rewards survival over early aggression. While it might lack some of the nuances of the ‘old’ Flanders, it produces a completely honest result since whatever happens, only the strongest rider in the race will survive the horrific circuit to emerge as the winner.
2024 Course Profile
The Critical Final 58 Kilometers
How the Crashes at Dwars door Vlaanderen Will Affect the Race
The big question coming into Sunday’s Flanders will be who, if anyone, can challenge Mathieu van der Poel, who has won two out of the last four editions, especially since he won’t have to face the rider that dropped in last year’s edition, Tadej Pogačar, on Sunday.
Before Wednesday, the conventional wisdom would have said Mads Pedersen, who handily beat Van der Poel last Sunday at Gent-Wevelgem after his Lidl-Trek team expertly worked over Van der Poel earlier in the race, or Wout van Aert, who was slated to enter the race with a strong Visma team sporting multiple winning options.
However, a crash on a straight, flat section of paved road before the decisive climb of the Kanarieberg changed everything. In the blink of an eye, due to a poorly-timed erratic mid-bunch move, a handful of the non-Mathieu van der Poel Flanders favorites, Mads Pedersen, Jasper Stuyven, and Wout van Aert, were taken down, and, in the case of Stuyven and Van Aert, rushed into surgery and ruled out of competition for the foreseeable future:
This unfortunate crash has undeniably shifted the power of balance for Sunday due to either directly taking out Van der Poel’s biggest competition (Van Aert), injuring them (Pedersen and Girmay), or weakening their teams due to making them unavailable due to injury (Kirsch and Stuyven).
Ruled out of Flanders:
Wout van Aert (Visma)
Jasper Stuyven (Lidl-Trek)
Alex Kirsch (Lidl-Trek)Suffering from various, unspecified injuries due to crash, but still racing at Flanders:
Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek)
Biniam Girmay (Intermarché)
Laurenz Rex (Intermarché)
The Crash’s Fallout:
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