Tour of Flanders: Tadej Pogačar powers to solo victory after decisive Kwaremont attack drops Van der Poel, Van Aert and Pedersen

Tadej Pogačar (UAE Team Emirates-XRG) soloed to his second Tour of Flanders title in a race of many attacks, leaving his rivals behind on the Oude Kwaremont to race to a 19km solo victory in Oudenaarde.

The world champion left behind a select group of favourites, including Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Deceuninck), Wout van Aert (Visma-Lease A Bike), and the Lidl-Trek duo of Mads Pedersen and Jasper Stuyven on the penultimate climb of the 269km race to seal his eighth Monument win.

Pogačar, who had traded blows with Van der Poel since the first ascent of the Oude Kwaremont at 55km to go, pushed on to a 30-second lead over the final hill of the day, the Paterberg, a lead he defended on the flat 13km run to the finish to win by 1:01.

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Second place was taken in a sprint from the four-man chase group by Pedersen, the second runner-up spot of his career. The Dane jumped from the rear of the quartet to beat Van der Poel to the line, who stood on the podium for the sixth time in seven starts.

Van Aert and Stuyven rounded out the top five, while Tiesj Benoot (Visma-Lease A Bike) was the next man to finish, 1:51 behind the champion.

“The goal was to win but in the end it’s hard to realise it. We did it and I cannot be more proud of the team and how we raced today, even though we had some bad luck. But in the end, all was good and I’m so happy to win this race in this jersey,” Pogačar said after his win.

“The plan was to go from [Oude Kwaremont] and we always followed the plan, even if we had some crashes in the team with my teammates. We made it and we stuck to it and we finished it off.

“There was a crash on the big road. I think Mathieu crashed there. We lost Jhonatan [Narváez], Tim [Wellens] and Florian [Vermeersch] as well. Florian somehow chased back all race more or less and made it just in time to lead out on the Kwaremont, so chapeau to him. We never gave up; all the riders were coming back. They went above themselves to do the plan and even with the setbacks they did it perfectly.

“Roubaix is a completely different race but I will accept the challenge, and I’ll try to do my best. I know that Flanders suits me a bit better, but you never know. Roubaix is also a very hard race, and I think that with the shape I have now, I should give it a try.”

How it unfolded

The 109th edition of the Tour of Flanders headed back to Bruges for the start this year, sending the riders on a winding 269km course south to Oudenaarde.

Along the way, the 174 riders of the peloton would face 19 major climbs and cobbled sectors, including the Koppenberg, three ascents of the Oude Kwaremont, and two of the Paterberg. The Kwaremont-Paterberg duo would feature as the final tests of the race ahead of a 13km flat run towards the finish.

Following the roll-out in Bruges, the attacks flew from the start, but it would take 30km before the main breakaway of the day was formed at the front.

An eight-man group jumped clear of the peloton to form the break. Connor Swift (Ineos Grenadiers), Elmar Reinders (Jayco-AlUla), Alessandro Romele (XDS-Astana), Rory Townsend (Q36.5), Marco Haller (Tudor), Victor Vercouillie (Flanders-Baloise) and the Picnic-PostNL duo of Sean Flynn and Timo Roosen made up the move.

Jens Reynders (Wagner Bazin WB) and Max Walker (EF Education-EasyPost) just missed the move, but the pair continued to ride on together in a battle to make the break a 10-man move.

Back in the peloton, Mikkel Bjerg and Silvan Dillier took up the pacemaking at the front for UAE Team Emirates-XRG and Alpecin-Deceuninck.

The pair, representing the two top favourites for victory in Tadej Pogačar and Mathieu van der Poel, left the break to ride four minutes up the road, while Reynders and Walker remained locked in what turned out to be a fruitless chase behind the break.

The pair would battle on until the first cobbled sector of the race at Doorn with 157km to go. There, they were brought back by the peloton, just before the riders passed through Oudenaarde for the first time, 15km ahead of the first passage of the Oude Kwaremont.

It was Romele, riding his first Monument, who led the race over the famous hill, while back in the peloton, Lidl-Trek and their leader Mads Pedersen had moved up to the front of the peloton.

Ahead of the second climb of the day, the Eikenberg, a crash took John Degenkolb (Picnic-PostNL) and Adrien Petit (Intermarché-Wanty) out of the race, also catching out Van der Poel. The Dutchman wasn’t badly affected having fallen on the grass, however, and was back in the peloton within 10km of the crash.

At the Molenberg, 110km out, Davide Ballerini (XDS-Astana) jumped off the front of the peloton, taking Vito Braet (Intermarché-Wanty), Stefan Küng (Groupama-FDJ), and Tiesj Benoot (Visma-Lease A Bike) with him in a strong four-man move.

Shortly afterwards, another strong group of riders jumped away, with Filippo Ganna (Ineos Grenadiers) joined by Daan Hoole (Lidl-Trek), Quinten Hermans (Alpecin-Deceuninck), and Matteo Trentin (Tudor).

The two groups merged together just inside the final 100km, and then linked up with the early breakaway on the run towards Berendries to make it a 14-man move. Back in the peloton, UAE Team Emirates-XRG massed on the front in response, with the enlarged break now lying a minute up the road.

With 87km to go, the number in the break dropped to 13 as neo-pro Romele dropped back, while at the front Swift led the way for Ganna as the break’s advantage grew to 1:15. Back in the peloton, Van der Poel made a quick scheduled stop to get back on his original race bike, which he had swapped out for a spare following the earlier crash.

On the road to the second ascent of Oude Kwaremont, the following ascents of Valkenberg, Berg Ten Houte, and Nieuwe Kruisberg/Hotond passed without incident, with the peloton hitting the Kwaremont 45 seconds down on the break.

The final

It was on the Oude Kwaremont, with 55km to go, that Pogačar struck the first blow of the day, attacking at the front. He took Visma-Lease A Bike pair Matteo Jorgenson and Wout van Aert and Mads Pedersen (Lidl-Trek) with him. Van der Poel, having initially been caught out of position further back, also joined in the move.

Up front, the break had disintegrated to leave six up front at the top of the hill – Ganna, Küng, Trentin, Benoot, Hoole, Ballerini, and Haller – Pogačar’s move had cut the gap to just 26 seconds.

At the base of the Paterberg, the peloton made it back across to Pogačar and Van der Poel’s group, but not for long. On the way up, it was Van der Poel’s time to jump, putting in an acceleration that only Pogačar could match.

Pedersen came across on the descent, while his teammate Jasper Stuyven and the Visma pair of Jorgenson and Van Aert made it six off the front heading into the final 50km. Three more riders – Neilson Powless (EF Education-EasyPost), Yevgeniy Fedorov (XDS-Astana), and Arjen Livyns (Lotto) came across on the run to the Koppenberg, which the group hit just seconds behind the break.

Pogačar and Van der Poel once again showed themselves as the strongest in the move on the way up, though it all came back together shortly afterwards to leave a 13-man group at the head of the race – minus Powless, Fedorov, and Livyns.

Further attacks from Pogačar on the Stationsberg and Taaienberg left the world champion alone out front with just Van der Poel and Pedersen for company. Behind them, the Visma trio, Stuyven, and Küng led the chase.

On the Oude Kruisberg/Hotond, Pedersen was dropped by another Pogačar-Van der Poel acceleration, with the former world champion soon joined by Stuyven and a solo Van Aert in the chase group.

They’d come together as a leading quintet at 24km to go, in time for the final ascent of the Oude Kwaremont. Van Aert went solo again on the lead-in to the hill, pushing on at the front of the race to lead the way up.

But it was there that Pogačar made his final big move. His acceleration went unmatched among the group of favourites, with even Van der Poel being forced to concede. At the top of the hill, he was away and on the road to another victory.

Behind him, the quartet he had left behind rolled through to take their turns on the front in the chase. But the win was already gone, with Pogačar only gaining time as the kilometres ticked down.

As Pogačar began his celebrations on the home straight, the chase group began fighting among themselves with an attack by Stuyven at 2km to go. The podium places would come down to a sprint among the four chasers, with Stuyven leading it out and Pedersen at the back.

The former world champion jumped first to take second place, with Van der Poel reacting but being unable to match the final acceleration. The Dutchman did, however, hold off Van Aert’s sprint to grab the second step on the podium ahead of his longtime rival.

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