Five highlights from the year, presented in no particular order. They’re picked for great sport and because we can apply the benefit of hindsight.
First is Gent-Wevelgem. It had suspense, it had surprise and it had a full cast of contenders too.
The Flemish classics seem to be melding into the same race, often using the same roads which means they’re losing some of the geographic identity, a sense heightened by confusing nomenclature. The Omloop uses the old Ronde route and the E3 Harelbeke borrows bits of both. Confusingly the Tour of Flanders doesn’t tour all that much of Flanders while the E3 Harelbeke prize is named after a road that was renamed the E17 in 1985. These days Gent-Wevelgem doesn’t start in Gent but Ypres. It’s a bit like buying soap powder where you can chose the brand but they all come out of the same factory.
This convergence is because the core product appeals: 200km or more of gritty racing with selective climbs, cobbles and dirt roads. Gent-Wevelgem delivers all this and this year’s edition had the additional ingredient of crosswinds.
Gent-Wevelgem’s passage close to the coast for the moeren marshlands helped speed up the race and with over 100km to go the action had started. Mathieu van der Poel launched the first time up the Kemmelberg and found himself swamped by Lidl-Trek with Jasper Philipsen and Mads Pedersen on his wheel, then joined by Jonathan Milan proving his range goes well beyond the sprints. Laurence Pithie was up there too, a breakthrough and looking elegant until the lights went out.
It’s not essential but many a good sporting contest gets reduced to a duel; it’s better than one rider going clear and the last hour turning into a victory parade, at least for viewers even if the rider still has to pull off a huge effort. This time Mads Pedersen and Mathieu van der Poel rode into the finish and the sprint was tight. The Dane launched and Van der Poel was on the wheel, it looked like the world champ was going to come around but as he got level he could do no more.
Why the pick?
The best spring classic? That’s subjective but here’s the argument: we had sport for hours on end and Mathieu van der Poel beaten right at the end. Not that Van der Poel deserved to lose, it’s just we got suspense and it even looked like he was going to win as he drew level with Pedersen with 50m, only to suddenly fold. Van der Poel was impressive in the Ronde and Roubaix but to the point of the thrill fading in the final hour.
Better still for Gent-Wevelgem, possibilities opened up for the upcoming races with Lidl-Trek as a collective force looking ready to take on Alpecin-Deceuninck and Visma-LAB, their demonstration that day was impressive. This was a satisfying feast that only left us hungry for more. Alas…
With hindsight
…the next classic on the calendar was Dwars Door Vlaanderen. While Matteo Jorgenson took a deserved win, the day – and the rest of the cobbled classics – was overshadowed by the crash that day with Mads Pedersen among those crashing but of course Wout van Aert faring the worst, but it ruined the spring for Biniam Girmay and Anthony Turgis among others too, including many onlookers.
One nagging thought is that if the star riders really want to win the Ronde and Roubaix then they may think twice about smaller races and sit them out for the sake of risk, an understandable reaction to this year’s events but a reaction indeed.
To end on a more positive note, it’s promising just to imagine a rematch of this race and the others, but with an improved Laurence Pithie joined by Oier Lazkano to lead Red Bull in the classics and we’ll see if they can widen the cast further.
Take out the top two and sixteen seconds behind it looked like the world championships for sprinters with Meeus, Philipsen, Milan, Kooij, Merlier, Groenwegen and Trentin all in the top ten. Credit to them being there after a hard 250km plus with, for me, Groenwegen the biggest surprise. Well done Dylan when other ‘pure’ sprinters (Démare…) were minutes down.
Gent-Wevelgem used to be “the sprinters’ classic” but that was because it had a flat course and the passage along the coast and moeren was the tricky bit. It’s the missing piece along with Paris-Tours from Mark Cavendish’s palmarès but both events changed during his career, which brings us back to the idea of all the classics becoming the same. And you can see why, 200km for a sprint finish doesn’t make gripping TV with so many other races and more to watch.
Does it not? So nobody likes echelons and cross winds? All we are interested is hills and watching the same riders win every race? Not sure I agree. If Gent-Wevelgem went back to its old route along the North Sea and every other year was a smash fest in cross winds I certainly wouldn’t be complaining.
You and I might sign up for this, but we need the guarantee of crosswinds. But the organisers are after repeat events with as many guarantees of action as possible.
The cobbled classics do get a bit same-y – Gent-Wevelgem stands out because it goes over different bergs – by the time we get to the Ronde, I often feel like I’ve already seen it.
It’d be more interesting to have some more varied routes for races like the E3 and Dwars Door Vlaanderen, or – maybe better still – move one of those races to the autumn. (The death of the Three Days of De Panne didn’t help either.)
Flanders isn’t a big place but some of these races lack a bit of local identity as they exploit the same roads over and over. But it’s not easy to get organisers to say no to the Koppenberg, Taaienberg etc.
There are separate plans that might see some of the classics moved, the idea being that the autumnal versions during Covid worked and so it could be done again. But as explored here before, if calendar reform happens, one of the first thing a management consultant would do is notice the amount of copycat races in Flanders and delete several of them, on the grounds of saturation, that one or two is plenty and besides, the audience is big there already and will watch races the rest of the year too.
Which is why management consultants should never be running anything ;o)
It was indeed a great race, not least because both Mads Pedersen and Mathieu van der Poel are true racers, that both believe in themselves and don’t fool around. When they first got clear, it was full gaz to flame rouge and may the strongest man win. And afterwards both men acknowledge when they are beaten fair and square, without any excuses.
Good point about developing identities for the cobbled classics, there is definitely a sense of sameness to many of them.
Re: “The Omloop uses the old Ronde” Wasn’t Omloop established as the “new Ronde” or “anti-Ronde”, after Het Nieuwsblad had discredited itself (at least among enough people to hold a new race) as a Nazi lackey? Of course it didn’t succeed in replacing the Ronde (and Het Nieuwsblad toook over Het Volk) but it did establish an identity as the opener of the Classics season.
Maybe not a highlight in the sense of a great race but as a harbinger of what was to come would be Strade Bianche. Not simply that at 26 Pog had not yet plateaud, but that what was once suicidal was now a winning move. Excepting MSR (which is a lottery anyway) all of the Monuments were won with at least a minute in hand. Not exactly competitive, but it’s up to the others to make a race of it and it will be interesting to see how other teams respond.
Yes, the Omloop and Ronde were long rival races and on a profound basis too, not just two rival sports events. More from a old post here at https://inrng.com/2018/02/the-new-omloop-and-the-old-ronde/ if people want more.
Thanks — should’ve known you covered that at some point!
Mads Pedersen is such a gift in these races. He just takes his turns on top of the Kasseien, and he is never afraid to attack. Total commitment. And afterwards in the interview, there is no bullshit even if the race didn’t go his way.
And his beastly sprint is legendary.
There are few who deserve a Flanders or a Roubaix more than him
In past years it sometimes felt like the first 90+% of many races was a formality that had to be completed before the inevitable bunch sprint would happen. In 2024 it felt like the bunch sprint was a more rare commodity. I would certainly sign on to see more races decided close to the end of the race rather than an hour or more before the end.