The cobbled classics start this weekend with Saturday’s Omloop Het Nieuwsblad, a 200km introduction to Flanders with all the classic ingredients from bad weather to great fans. Some races are held to promote tourism but this is so grim the images must put people off visiting Belgium but the rough conditions make the race all the better.
Omloop-what?
Omloop is Dutch for a loop, a circuit race. The race was created in 1945 and was named the Omloop Het Volk but the Het Volk newspaper was merged into Het Nieuwsblad. Het Nieuwsblad is a newspaper whose name literally translates as The News Sheet.
The Course: Starting and finishing in the city of Ghent the race occupies a triangular sector to the south, criss-crossing roads to use as much of the terrain as possible. As the profile suggests, the first 100km are without too many obstacles although they tackle the infamous Muur early, it helps to sap the legs. Things get serious with 80km to go, anyone badly positioned from now on is going to waste energy needed for later. A succession of short climbs, cobbles and cobbled climbs ensures the process of attrition.
The Molenberg is the last climb with 35km to go, the climb near the famous Vinkemolen windmill. Then with 30km to go comes the final cobbled shake out with the Padestraat, Lippenhoestraat and Lange Munte sections over 10km. These are flat sections and exposed and the winning move often goes clear. After there’s a series of exposed roads for the final 20km.
The Finish: a sprint into Gent, sheltered by the urban environment. During the final kilometre the road curves slightly and there’s a slight gradient, nothing selective but just enough to punish someone who is too tired for a sprint in a big gear.
The Scenario: the early break will go overloaded with riders from wildcard teams and a sprinkling of B-list contenders. If you’re not going to win the race you might as well get in a move get on TV and there’s usually a scrap to go clear at the start.
After the feedzone the bunch will start to control the race, look to see which teams lead the chase. The Kruisberg marks the start of open hostilities. Each climb and cobbled sector has a before, a during and an after:
- Before: the approach can’t be underestimated with riders fighting for position on narrow roads as the bunch bears down on the climb at 55-60km/h
- During: the cobbles and climbs are tiring and any mistakes are paid for in full, cash-on-delivery: drop your chain or stall in the ditch and you lose 50 places
- After: the moment after the climb or pavé is equally important, everyone’s gone into the red uphill and the stronger riders can force a selection while others are repaying oxygen debt
However the course is such that the connecting roads are dangerous too, they twist and turn and knowing the route counts for plenty. By 30km to go we should be down to a selection of riders and teams. Team tactics play a big part here because the final 20km are on fast and open roads. If a team has a man up the road it can police any chase group so watch the composition of the lead group and the chasers.
The Contenders: it’s a hard course but not a 250km slog-fest nor selective to the end. With this in mind our prototype winner must have a strong team to lock down the race and a fast sprint to finish the job.
Greg Van Avermaet is the prime pick. His BMC team is strong, he is in good form, so strong he had to back off in Qatar and he packs a good sprint. Were it not for a wardrobe malfunction last year arguably he would have got the better of Ian Stannard and won the sprint. He needs a win for confidence and get the team on his side. Just don’t bet the ranch on it, he’s adept at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory. Philippe Gilbert has won the race twice before but that was during his FDJ era and these days he’s too much of star to let go.
Sep Vanmarcke is the next name. The Belgian is a classics expert who has won this race before and after coming close in Paris-Roubaix and the Tour of Flanders in 2013 and 2014 this race is well within his reach. He’s not been on dazzling form so far but there’s a pattern where he rides the Volta ao Algarve in anonymity before emerging like a yellow daffodil in home soil. In case of a sprint new hire Tom Van Asbroeck is fast too, he’s only 24 and was on the podium in many races last year and the rest of the team should offer support late into the race.
Who to pick from Etixx-Quick Step? Tom Boonen hasn’t won this race before but it’s not for the want of trying. He’s got all the right ingredients with good form, a strong team and of course he packs a powerful punch. But he’s going to be marked and if anything he’ll act like a magnet for rival teams, he only has to lift his rear of the saddle on the Taaienberg for half the bunch to tremble. So while he gets shut down we could see the old 1-2 and a team mate goes up the road with Boonen sitting back to play the sprint card, a move deployed with success by Niki Terpstra several times last year. Zdeněk Štybar is a stylish pick, he’s got to win something big in the spring classics sometime but this is a strong team with Guillaume Van Keirsbulck and Matteo Trentin capable of winning too. Just remember the team has form for bungling this race, Pat Lefevere’s outfit hasn’t won it since 2005.
Alexander Kristoff leads a strong Katusha team, an outfit lined up in the service of their leader. Marco Haller, Rüdiger Selig and Alexei Tsatevich all finish fast but they’re surely all in support of their Norwegian captain. Kristoff is a difficult customer for other teams, he’ll outsprint almost anyone and he’ll survive the cobbles, in fact he’s willing to provoke moves too.
What of defending champion Ian Stannard? Back-to-back wins are common here but the British rider probably needs harder conditions to help his chances, he seems to thrive when the weather turns from grim to apocalyptic. With Team Sky Bradley Wiggins brings the curiosity factor, look to see his positioning and race craft while Luke Rowe is an outsider and Andrew Fenn brings some sprint options.
Lotto-Soudal tend to time their classics season implosion for April but this time they’ve already lost top pick Jurgen Roelandts to ‘flu. The likes of Jens Debusschere and Kenny Dehaes sprint fast and in-form Pim Ligthart can’t be ignored.
FDJ bring Arnaud Démare, the French rider is a brilliant sprinter and tough for the classics but imagining him and his team get the better of everyone else is a big ask, Yoann Offredo and Matthieu Ladagnous are Paris-Roubaix outsiders and Johan Le Bon stirred up the race last year, expect the team to get stronger in the coming weeks. Cofidis don’t bring their new sprinter Nacer Bouhanni but Florian Sénéchal is a tip for the classics this spring, while Adrien Petit sprints and Gert Jõeäär is a bet for the early breakaway.
IAM Cycling have had a great start to the season, now we’ll see how they fare on the rough roads. Sylvain Chavanel looked excellent in Andalucia, ninth overall and third on the tricky uphill sprint for the final stage, ditto Matthias Brändle who soloed for the win in Oman. Assuming they adapt to the cold weather either can barge ahead knowing Heinrich Haussler is the sprint card.
Ag2r aren’t famous for the classics but have beefed up here with Johan Vansummeren who can double-up as a GC support rider for grand tours while Damien Gaudin is still dining out on one good Paris-Roubaix. Watch Gougeard for a promising young rider.
MTN-Qhubeka are the interesting wildcard picks although put aside the “Africa rising” story for the weekend, this is more about the new signings with Edvald Boasson-Hagen the biggest curiosity. He was close to winning last year and returns after a winter reunited with his old coach from pre-Sky days and several extra kilos heavier, the result of strength building rather than greed we’re told. Alongside him is “local” Tyler Farrar, Gerald Ciolek and Reinardt Janse van Rensburg.
Local team Topsport Vlaanderen have a pearl in Edward Theuns, the revelation of the early season so far thanks to consistent sprinting that’s got him seven top-10 places. A win? Unlikely but watch him. As this isn’t a World Tour race there are a lot of invited teams from the Pro Conti ranks who might feature in the break but are less to appear the longer the race goes on. Still Europcar have Gène and Martinez for the sprint, Wanty-Gobert have Leukemans, Selvaggi and Marcato and Roompot have Kreder. Bretagne-Séché’s Dan McLay won a stage in La Tropicale but now he’s got to contend with De Winter.
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Greg Van Avermaet, Sep Vanmarcke, Alexander Kristoff |
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Tom Boonen, Niki Terpstra, Zdeněk Štybar |
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Haussler, Boasson-Hagen, Van Keirsbulck, Stannard, Démare |
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Gilbert, Rowe, Van Asbroeck, Theuns, Farrar, Chavanel, Arndt, Gougeard, Sénéchal |
- Nobody gets five rings and if there are some big names often they prefer to sit tight between now and Milan-Sanremo
- See procyclingstats.com for the full startlist.
Weather (updated Saturday): cool and cloudy, temperatures will reach no more than 9°C. The wind will blow from the south with a forecast 20-30km/h which could gust to 45km/h. It’ll be enough to ravage the peloton before a crash-generating tailwind on the return to Ghent.
TV: the finish is expected for 4.40pm Euro time. Belgian TV goes starts coverage at 1.30pm but with introductions and magazine programmes before live footage. Tune in by 3.00pm to get the action from the Kruisberg onwards.
Coverage is limited as it’s not on Eurosport. If you can’t find it on TV see cyclingfans.com and steephill.tv for broadcast schedules and pirate feeds.
Women’s Race: there’s the women’s edition too and hopefully Belgian TV will cut to this at times. The finish is forecast for 2.50pm and you can read a preview over at velofocus.com
Kuurne-Brussels-Kuurne: a preview should go online on Saturday evening for Sunday’s race.
Rode the last 100km last saturday, here’s what I observed
1. Orica Green Edge had the same idea, I crossed paths with a group of 7 of them a couple of times.
2. Tune in early… the 3km before the Taainberg will be mayhem. The second bit of Donderij is a shambles then the route down to the bottom of the climb (its the other direction to the way RVV goes) is covered in mud and has a trench full of cobbles to seperate the bike lane. Then they make a left down a windy single track descent full of gravel and farm muck.
3. The Molenberg is proper slippy as they covered it in sand over the winter so residents could get their cars up and down and its washed down the hill and clumped on the corner.
4. They need to get somebody round with a pressure washer as some of the lanes are absolutely clarted.
Sounds like a tough ride. The road are cleaned by rainfall and not much else. Note Orica-Greenedge as in the men’s team, aren’t riding this one.
Nice little extra to the post. Would you pre ride all the classics and report back? How about for a hat?
Also weather forecast calls for a big headwind from the turn onto the long downhill into Ronse until the finish with the Molenberg, Paddestraat and Lippenhovenstraat straight into it. Bit strange as the prevailing winds around here are in the opposite direction.
“he’s adept at snatching defeat from the jaws of victory”
Great line. GVA really needs a major win to put that to bed.
The first photo reminds me of your recent tractor art comment.
Vanmarcke or Terpstra for me. The anticipation of racing starting in Belg never ceases to excite me
By far the best part of the season is starting 🙂
The only negative thing about cobbled one-day races is that they are only part of the spring, not all year round.
@inrng, minor quibble: while Het Nieuwsblad indeed literally means the news sheet, a better translation for me would be The Newspaper, wouldn’t you agree?
True, I suppose I wanted the literal version.
I would say the most common meaning of the word ‘blad’ is ‘leaf’, ‘sheet’ is another meaning but so is ‘magazine’. ‘Nieuwsblad’ is a word in itself and a pretty common name for a paper, e.g. Nieuwsblad van het Noorden in The Netherlands. I really disliked the name change, because although ‘Het Volk’ was also just the name of a newspaper, it translates as ‘the people’, which is a much better name for a bike race.
So Het Volk was The People?
Complex names for papers in Belgium 😉
Steve
Haha! It’s not complex, really. Het Volk in Belgian translates to Das Volk in German (The V is pronounced F in German) and Folket in the Scandinavian languages.
The English “People” has latin sources, and probably got into the language by French invasion.
The etymological english equivalent is “Folk”.
We have the word ‘folk’ in English too, although it isn’t that widely used on it’s own.
I wonder how Trentin’s recovered after his recent minor off. With a better forecast than last year it might be a limited opportunity for him to shine in a small group sprint before others take centre stage in a few weeks time.
He was on the attack last year attack last year after the Taaienberg, will OPQS save him for the sprint or does Boonen have that role? You’d think Tommeke does.
Other minor quibble to what is an outstanding day on this site (great Astana coverage as well!):
this race started out (1945-1946) as the ‘Omloop van Vlaanderen’ – but so as not to confuse the race with the RVV, the name was then changed to that of the sponsor, ‘het Volk’. Het Volk was a newspaper competing with ‘Het Nieuwsblad’ but later bought by the latter hence the subsequent name change of the race. Apparently, when the two papers were still competitors, editors of HN were forbidden to write about the omloop HV…
The race was conceived as an alternative to De Ronde because there was a thought within Flanders that the organisers were a bit too accommodating to the occupier during WW2.
Feels good that the spring classics are upon us. I’m really interested to see how Edvald Boasson-Hagen goes with the new team.
“Some races are held to promote tourism but this is so grim the images must put people off visiting Belgium”….hahaha. What a great description of this race
I thought maybe Boom was riding, as he is in your collection of images 😉
Also, I wish GVA would hurry up and win a (semi)classic so we can all stop talking about his potential…
No, currently training in Tenerife for bigger things… if he gets to race that is.
This could be a fierce battle between, Etixx, BMC, and Sky to deliver their leaders to the foot of the Molenberg !
Androni only bringing five riders to support Gatto. They probably feel he can freelance all the way to the finale.
Why does not cancellara to Do this race? I assume his team is most welcome
It’s on Eurosport in Australia #Excited
Oomloop what? in English translation I like the understatement of “The Newspaper Round” for 200km of serious test.
What was Van Avermaet’s “wardrobe malfunction” that kept him from winning (apart for the missing gñlove, I don’t think he lost because of a glove)?
There was the glove but he had too little clothing on and froze in the cold rain, his legs tetanised by the cold and visibly shaking after the finish line. Stannard played him right with a long sprint as a test of power.
If you look at their relative condition in post race interviews you’ll see gva was basically traumatized by the cold while stannard wasn’t bothered. One glove contributed to that but body composition also played a role I’m sure.
Ahh proper racing!
How do you think the news that Greg Van Avermaet has been asked to appear in front of the Belgian Cycling Federation to answer doping allegations will affect his race? http://www.cyclingnews.com/news/van-avermaet-set-to-ride-omloop-het-nieuwsblad-despite-doping-allegations
He’d not be a very popular winner in these circumstances, so surely would be wise to lay low rather than be forced to face some awkward questions if he won?
For now it doesn’t look too serious for him, a hearing has been called and the talk of injecting recovery products which could have happened after the needle ban came in for May 2011. Very stupid of him if it’s true and embarrassing, front page stuff for Het Nieuwsblad.
Suspect he’ll hide on the team bus for as long as possible and he might let his legs do the talking today.
How I wish I could spend 6 weeks in Belgium, starting today.
Yep. They bungled it again.
Holy $h!t. Stannard is a stud. Etixx Quick Step must be a bit embarrassed.
When was the last time one lone rider, against three Belgium’s, in Belgium proved best, smarter, stronger and faster. I would not like to be in the shoes of the Belgium’s in the bus right now !
An exciting and totally unexpected climax to an excellent race.
“Just remember the team has form for bungling this race”
phrophetic IR….. well done….
Not to mention IR getting nine out of the top ten in his list of contenders, Vanderbergh being the exception.
I’d give Stannard five rings next year even if he’s not on the start list.
Great preview! I was sitting on the couch thinking Stannard would be lucky to climb onto the podium but Etixx really bungled it (again) and Terpstra might be made to ride home UNDER the bus with the bikes after that cock-up. BRAVO to Stannard for never giving up under the tag-team tactics. A shame that Sep Vanmarcke flatted, he seemed to have enough to perhaps have made the finale much different. I’ll be at Strade Bianche in-person next week and Tirreno-Adriatico after that – these “proper” races are revving me up for the start of the REAL racing season, Milano-Sanremo.
Well stannard should give a big thanks to Stef for chasing their little group, Boonen and teammates had to go flat out the last 35 km, and he could ” coast along”.
It is not a clear case of bungling by Ettix, worn out more probably.
Well, one more example of a wonderful radio-less race, where team tactics fail, and the result is thrilling and unpredictable. Next time Lefévère argues for race radios, tell him he should be laying bricks.
Only got round to reading the preview after the race – can Inner Ring please clarify if ending up in a three against one situation counts as ‘harder conditions’? 😉
Looking forward to the rest of the cobble season now…