E3 Saxo Bank Classic to test Tour of Flanders favourites - Preview

At this time of the year in Belgium, every race is viewed through the optic of what it means for the Tour of Flanders, and no event offers reliable pointers quite like the E3 Saxo Bank Classic in Harelbeke.

The Omloop Het Nieuwsblad-Tour of Flanders double has notoriously never been done, but notching up wins in Harelbeke and the Ronde in the same year has become almost commonplace since Johan Museeuw first managed it in 1998. It’s been achieved eight more times since, most recently by Kasper Asgreen, who showcased his staying power and peak of form to win both races a year ago.

Asgreen’s return to the fray marks one of the key subplots to Friday’s race. Although QuickStep-AlphaVinyl have already notched up 14 wins this season, they were strangely subdued at Omloop and struggled to make any impression at Milan-San Remo in the absence of Asgreen and Julian Alaphilippe.

With the world champion sparing himself for the Ardennes Classics, QuickStep’s long-standing status as the strongest collective outfit on the cobbles suddenly seems in question. But a victory – or at the very least, a race on their terms – in Harelbeke, would go a long way towards assuaging doubts ahead of the Ronde.

Asgreen’s early-season preparation for Opening Weekend was interrupted by COVID-19, but the Dane already looked back on track when he rode to third place at Strade Bianche a week later. 

He should be prominent again in Belgium, but he will hope for rather more robust support from Zdenek Stybar and Yves Lampaert, who have shown only flashes of their potential so far in 2022.

There have been no such issues at Jumbo-Visma, who already looked prime to take on QuickStep even before the season began thanks to their reinforcement of the supporting cast around Wout van Aert. 

New arrival Tiesj Benoot played a key role in teeing up Van Aert’s victory at Omloop, while the Belgian champion can also rely on the help of Nathan Van Hooydonck and the on-form Christophe Laporte in Harelbeke. One senses that Jumbo-Visma will be eager to lay down another marker on Friday.

Van Aert’s form and all-round ability makes him the obvious favourite for victory in Harelbeke, while Jumbo-Visma’s new depth means that he is now altogether more resistant to being outmanoeuvred by QuickStep’s traditional strength in numbers. He went deep, of course, to track Tadej Pogačar’s (UAE Team Emirates) onslaught on the Poggio last Saturday, but it is difficult to envisage Van Aert not being a factor in the finale.

The spoils in Milan-San Remo ultimately fell to Matej Mohorič (Bahrain Victorious), who returns to Harelbeke after a three-year hiatus. His assured display on the final stage of the 2018 BinckBank Tour hinted at his potential on this kind of terrain and this Spring might be when he finally explores it in earnest.

Several major teams line up with multiple options, including Trek-Segafredo with Mads Pedersen, Jasper Stuyven and Quinn Simmons, AG2R Citroën with Greg Van Avermaet and Oliver Naesen, and Ineos Grenadiers with Dylan van Baarle and Jhonatan Narvaez, though Tom Pidcock is absent after his stomach problems forced his untimely abandon at Milan-San Remo.

Peter Sagan (TotalEnergies) is still trying to feel his way back to form after COVID-19 blighted his early season, though his teammate Anthony Turgis – a defiant second on the Via Roma at Milan-San Remo – might be a more reliable prospect on Friday. 

Stefan Küng (Groupama-FDJ) has been due a breakthrough on the cobbles for some time, and his displays on Opening Weekend and again in Paris-Nice strongly suggested that this might be the year.

Elsewhere, Søren Kragh Andersen (Team DSM) and Victor Campenaerts (Lotto Soudal) have shown sustained flashes of their form in recent weeks, while Biniam Girmay’s (Intermarché-Wanty-Gobert Matériaux) debut will be worth following closely.

And yet, for all that the E3 Saxo Bank Classic is the sine qua non of Tour of Flanders dress rehearsal, at least one of the Ronde’s leading men will be in action 1,300 kilometres further south on Friday. Mathieu van der Poel (Alpecin-Fenix) has opted to bank racing miles at the Settimana Coppi e Bartali this week after taking third on his seasonal debut at Milan-San Remo.

No matter the result in Harelbeke, then, the Tour of Flanders will be the peak of the Flemish classics.

The race route

E3 Harelbeke was first held in 1958 but it only took on its current form in the mid-1990s, when the route was tweaked to make it more demanding and, well, more similar to the Tour of Flanders. 

And yet, the race retains an identity of its own, thanks in no small part to the fierce independence of its organising committee, which sits firmly outside the Flanders Classics umbrella.

The start and finish town of Harelbeke, styled as the ‘Texas of Flanders,’ sits on the outskirts of Kortrijk, and, as ever, the route follows a loop into the Flemish Ardennes and back, taking in 17 climbs along the way.

The Katteberg serves to break the monotony of the flat first hour of racing, but the rest of the ascents are shoehorned into 100 dizzying kilometres. E3 Harelbeke may be shorter than the Ronde, but few races pack so many stiff obstacles into such a tight space, making this a rare challenge.

The ‘long finale’ is the calling card of the modern E3 Harelbeke, and the winnowing process could begin from as far out as the second climb of La Houppe, which comes after 92km. Traditionally, however, the Taaienberg marks the turning point in the race, as it did in 2021, when Asgreen began his multi-instalment offensive here. Like last year, the Taaienberg is the eighth climb of the day and is tackled with just over 80km remaining.

From there, it’s a battle of attrition until the race tackles the familiar duo of the Paterberg and Oude Kwaremont – notice the reverse order compared to the Ronde – with 40km remaining. The smooth but steep Karnemelkbeekstraat is again the penultimate ascent before the final haul up the Tiegemberg.

On paper, this last climb is far from the toughest in this corner of the world, but it is just hard enough to make the difference at the end of a slugging match like this, as Van Aert discovered a year ago. The 20km run-in to Harelbeke, meanwhile, offers ample scope for interpretation. 

The dress rehearsal for the Ronde is also a race apart but a perfect taster of the week to come.