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Ronde van Vlaanderen April 5th 2015 **warning: contains unmasked spoilers**
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02-04-2015 7:14pm#1Ronde van Vlaanderen / Tour of Flanders - Sunday April 5th 2015 (Brugge - Oudenaarde 264.9 km)
The 99th edition of the Ronde Van Vlaanderen, which is the second of the five Monuments of the year, should be one of the most widely open contested races in recent years as three-time winners Fabian Cancellara and Tom Boonen will be both missing due to injury. In some cool news, onboard camera footage will be shown
The race starts in Brugge and finishes in Oudenaarde. The parcours are highly technical very tough. It's 264 kilometres in length, with 19 hellingen (hills/climbs), and tonnes of kasseien (cobblestones).
The full startlist can be found here.
So who are the contenders? With no Spartacus, two-time winner Stijn Devolder will be the main man for Trek. He may be getting on in age (35), but he has plenty of experience as this will be his 14th time riding the Tour of Flanders. Earlier this week he showed that he can still perform when given the chance as team leader, finishing second overall in Driedaagse De Panne-Koksijde.
Greg Van Avermaet for BMC will most definitely feature at the front of the race at some point. He's not afraid to attack, and he has performed very well in this race before with a 2nd place ('14), 4th place ('12) and 7th place ('13) finish. He's shown good form so far this season with 2nd place in Strade Bianche, a stage win in Tirreno-Adriatico, and 6th place in Omloop Het Nieuwsbald. Plan B for BMC will be Sideshow Bob Daniel Oss.
Tom Boonen may be missing from Etixx - Quick Step's squad, but they still have the strongest team. Niki Terpstra (6th here in '14 and '12 and current Paris-Roubaix champion), Stijn Vandenbergh (4th here in '14), and Zdenek Stybar (Strade Bianche winner and runner-up in E3 Harelbeke this year) are all potential winners. Their biggest problem seems to be not being able to take advantage when they have multiple riders in the lead group at the business end of things.
Katusha have the most in-form sprinter in the peloton at the moment, and that is Alexander Kristoff. The Norwegian has been unbelievably impressive this season with three stage wins in Qatar, a stage win in Oman, a win in Paris-Nice, 2nd in Milan-San Remo, 2nd in Kuurne-Bruxelles-Kuurne, 4th in E3 Harelbeke, and 9th in Gent-Wevelgem. And most recently just this week he completely dominated everyone in The Three Days of De Panne by winning three stages, coming 3rd in the ITT, and winning overall. Kristoff has also perfromed well at the Tour of Flanders, finishing 5th and 4th in the last two years. If this year's race comes down to a large-ish bunch sprint, then Kristoff is the most likely winner. However, he might not have the strength to stick with the attacks on the final climb of the Paterberg in order to be in the lead group. Plan B for Katusha is Luca Paolini. The brightly bearded Italian has also shown good Classics form by winning Gent-Wevelgem last week. It's worth noting that he finished 3rd and 7th in the Tour of Flanders in '07 and '12 respectively.
Sep Vanmarcke of LottoNL-Jumbo seems to be always the bridesmaid and never the bride when it comes to the Spring Classics. He's had so many top-10 finishes, too many to mention, but only one win and that was in Omloop in 2012. He certainly has the ability to win a Monument, and I think it's just a question of when rather than if. He is more suited to the parcours of Paris-Roubaix than Flanders, but it won't be a surprise to anyone if he is first rider across the line on Sunday.
Team Sky's Geraint Thomas has produced the best results of his career during the last couple of weeks, winning E3 Harelbeke and coming 3rd in Gent-Wevelgem. He also finished a very impressive 8th place in RVV last year. Couple these results with the fact that he has some strong Classics domestiques such as Bradley Wiggins and Ian Stannard working for him, then it's clear that Thomas has a very good chance of winning.
Milan - San Remo winner John Degenkolb may not be the strongest rider on cobbles, but that doesn't mean he can't win. Similar to his strategy a few weeks ago on the Poggio, Degenkolb will need to do his best to stay with the attacks on the Kwaremont and Paterberg and hope there is a re-grouping before the finish.
And last but not least, Peter Sagan of Tinkoff-Saxo. A couple of years ago, Sagan was going to be the next Boonen or Cancellara and dominate the Spring Classics. However this has not happened as of yet. That's not to say that he hasn't had some fantastic results in one-day races in the mean time, coming 4th this year in MSR, and 1st, 2nd and 6th in E3 Harelbeke, Strade Bianche and Paris-Roubaix in 2014 respectively. Sagan has had problems in the last month as evident in Strade Bianche when he was one of the first favourites to get dropped and more recently in E3 Harelbeke when he was in the winning break but his legs completely bonked with only a few kilometres to go. Also the suspension of Bjarne Riis must be an unwelcome distraction.
There is one Irishman taking part, and that is Matt Brammeier (MTN-Qhubeka). Cyclingnews have a short interview with him here.
Betting odds: Sep Vanmarcke 4/1; Geraint Thomas 9/2; Niki Terpstra 8/1; Alexander Kristoff 8/1; Zdenek Stybar 9/1; Peter Sagan 9/1; Greg Van Avermaet 10/1; John Degenkolb 18/1; Stijn Vandenbergh 22/1.
Live TV coverage on Eurosport1 from 11.15am on Sunday.
Cyclingnews will have live text ticker here.
Highlights on Eurosport 2 at 7pm and Eurosport1 at 11.30pm later that day.
And finally, here is a nice infographic from Team Sky depicting the Tour of Flanders.
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https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C4wn-TNcczwComments
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I don't think Wiggins is expeating much for himself in the Ronde, but he sounds well set up for P-R. Interesting article here
http://www.theguardian.com/sport/2015/mar/30/bradley-wiggins-history-paris-roubaix-classic
We'll miss Wiggo when he retires from the road in a few weeks, who else would get away with complimenting the 3 days of De Panne at one end of an interview and then referring to it as a 'sh1thole of a race's a few minutes later...
https://youtu.be/_m0buv4xzAg0 -
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The greatest race of them all. Probably the most open field for quite some time. I would love to see Thomas win and he has a great chance but I think Stybar or Van Avermaet might just do it. Kristoff is in the form of his life(still only 27) but the last time up the Oude Kwaremont and Paterberg might be too much in saying that Paolini might be there to help him cross the gap if the leaders start playing around like last year. Degenkolb like Kristoff might struggle with the last two climbs and what about Sagan..he has to click someday and this race suits him. So I'm going for Stybar or Van Avermaet (hopefully Thomas ) with Pozzato as an outside bet! 0
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Darkglasses wrote: »Do you know where we can watch the race or highlights? Of course I do. Keep an eye on my twitter @caroline_ie and my write ups feature here http://en.uci.ch/road/ucievents/2015-road-uci-women-road-world-cup/162107015/ 0
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Darkglasses wrote: »Do you know where we can watch the race or highlights?
The women's race will be on the latter parts of the mens and run between 10 and about 2pm Irish time. With coverage of the mens race starting at 11am bst, I suspect that coverage of the women's race will be minimal, unfortunately..... Maybe just the/a sprint finish
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Picture the scene....
It's a couple of days before the Tour of Flanders and you decide to cycle up the Koppenberg to see how tough it is. Well it's really hard and you have to hop off the bike and walk. You hear someone walking up from behind. You turn around and it turns out to be the 2011 runner-up Sylvain Chavanel (IAM Cycling)!! :eek: :eek:
http://www.steephill.tv/2015/tour-of-flanders/photos/page-01/105113_PIC528622217.jpg0 -
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dastardly00 wrote: »Picture the scene....
It's a couple of days before the Tour of Flanders and you decide to cycle up the Koppenberg to see how tough it is. Well it's really hard and you have to hop off the bike and walk. You hear someone walking up from behind. You turn around and it turns out to be the 2011 runner-up Sylvain Chavanel (IAM Cycling)!! :eek: :eek:
http://www.steephill.tv/2015/tour-of-flanders/photos/page-01/105113_PIC528622217.jpg
Makes me happy that I was able to ride most of it today even though it was wet and covered in mud. Got stuck in a bottle neck, but got going again. Plenty of people cheering us on.0 -
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